Audrey Blignault
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Audrey Bettie Blignault (July 6, 1916 – October 1, 2008) was a South African writer.


Life

The daughter of an Irish mother and an
Afrikaner Afrikaners () are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopæd ...
father who was the town's mayor, she was born Audrey Bettie Swart in
Bredasdorp Bredasdorp is a town in the Southern Overberg region of the Western Cape, South Africa, and the main economic and service hub of that region. It lies on the northern edge of the Agulhas Plain, about south-east of Cape Town and north of Cape Agu ...
. She studied
Afrikaans literature Afrikaans literature is literature written in Afrikaans. Afrikaans is the daughter language of 17th-century Dutch and is spoken by the majority of people in the Western Cape of South Africa and among Afrikaners and Coloured South Africans in othe ...
at
Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch University (SU) (, ) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Sahara ...
, receiving an MA in Afrikaans and Dutch. In 1940, she began teaching at
Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...
and then later at
Stellenbosch Stellenbosch (; )A Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer.
Thomas Baldwin ...
. In 1945, she became the editor of ''Die Huisvrou'', a women's magazine. In the same year, she started the first
Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
book programme on
radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3  hertz (Hz) and 300  gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...
. For 25 years, she wrote a column for the Afrikaans women's magazine ''
Sarie ''Sarie'' is a South African women's magazine, written in Afrikaans. It is published by Media24, and is their oldest publication for women, first published in 1949 under the title '' Sarie Marais''. Based in Cape Town Cape Town is the l ...
''. Essays from those columns were collected and published in 17 books. A collection of her letters ''Audrey Blignault: ’n Blywende vreugde'' was published in May 2008. Blignault also was editor for ''Naweekpos'' and directed the women's culture programme for the
South African Broadcasting Corporation The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is the public broadcaster in South Africa, and provides 19 radio stations (Amplitude modulation, AM/Frequency modulation, FM) as well as 6 television broadcasts and 3 OTT Services to the general ...
. Blignault died in a
Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
clinic at the age of 92.


Family

She was married twice: first to Andries Blignault; he died in an automobile accident in 1967. She was seriously injured in the same accident but was the only survivor from the vehicle. She married Attie de Villiers in 1970. Her daughter Marié Heese also became a writer.


Awards and honours

She received the
Eugène Marais Prize The Eugène Marais Prize is a South African literary prize awarded by the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns for a first or early publication in Afrikaans. In 1971 it was renamed after the Afrikaans poet and researcher Eugène Marais. T ...
in 1961, the W.A. Hofmeyr Prize in 1965 and the Italian
Adelaide Ristori Adelaide Ristori (29 January 1822 – 9 October 1906) was a distinguished Italian tragedienne, who was often referred to as the Marquise. Biography She was born in Cividale del Friuli, the daughter of strolling players and appeared as a child ...
Prize. In 1982, she received the State President's award for outstanding service. She was the first woman to be named to the board of the South African Academy for Science and Culture.


Selected works

* ''In klein maat'' Kaapstad, 1955. * ''Die vrolike lied'' (1957) * ''Met ligter tred'' (1962)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blignault, Audrey 1916 births 2008 deaths 20th-century South African women writers South African women journalists Stellenbosch University alumni Afrikaans-language writers