Toek Blignaut (17 May 1922 – 5 January 2007) was a South African writer. She wrote over 80 books and 200 short stories. She interviewed heart surgeon

Christiaan Barnard Christiaan Neethling Barnard (8November 19222September 2001) was a South African cardiac surgeon who performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplant operation. On 3 December 1967, Barnard transplanted the heart of accident victim ...

and she made the first interview with

Rain Queen Queen Modjadji, or the Rain Queen, is the hereditary queen of Balobedu, a people of the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The Rain Queen is believed to have special powers, including the ability to control the clouds and rainfall. She is know ...

Mokope Modjadji Mokope Modjadji V (27 April 193728 June 2001) was the fifth Rain Queen of the Balobedu Nation in the Limpopo Province of South Africa from 1981 until her death in 2001. Life Mokope Modjadji was very traditional in her role as Rain Queen. She li ...

. Blignaut was an

agony aunt An advice column is a column in a question and answer format. Typically, a (usually anonymous) reader writes to the media outlet with a problem in the form of a question, and the media outlet provides an answer or response. The responses are wr ...

at the

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 ...

teenage magazine '' Rooi Rose'' where she rose to be vice-editor.

Life

Blignaut was born in

Bloemfontein Bloemfontein ( ; ), also known as Bloem, is the capital and the largest city of the Free State (province), Free State province in South Africa. It is often, and has been traditionally, referred to as the country's "judicial capital", alongsi ...

in 1922 as Johanna Marthina Sophia Venter. Her parents owned a farm in the Free State and she attended school near the

Kaffer River Kaffir () is an exonym and an ethnic slur the use of it in reference to black people being particularly common in South Africa and to some degree Namibia and the former Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In Arabic, the word '' kāfir'' ("unbeliever") was ...

. She grew to a height of . She was engaged to be married but instead married a pen friend, Jacobus Nicolaas Francois (Jaap) Blignaut, in 1944. They were to have two daughters who in time would also become writers. Whilst she was caring for her children she wrote in her spare time. Initially, she worked as a freelance but she was offered a permanent position at ''Rooi Rose'' magazine. She was an advice columnist at this Afrikaans teenage magazine where she rose to be vice-editor. One of her tasks was to conduct an interview with the heart surgeon Christiaan Barnard after he made the first

heart transplant A heart transplant, or a cardiac transplant, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure when other medical or surgical treatments have failed. , the most common procedure is to take a functioning heart ...

. Her most popular book was ''Donker op Nebo'' (1970), her first written in Afrikaans. She wrote over 80 books and 200 short stories. She also conducted the first interview granted with the Rain Queen Mokope Modjadji. Blignaut died in Bloemfontein in 2007 of a heart attack.

Selected works

* ''Donker Skaduwees Oor Rheinheim.'' Johannesburg : Perskor, 1963. * ''Om Die Son Te Aanskou.'' Cape Town : Nasional Boekhandel, 1968. *''Donker op Nebo'', Pretoria : Van der Walt, 1970. *''Uit Hirdie Donker Nag'' Pretoria : Van der Walt (J.P.), 1975. * ''Jy, Prins Van Verre.'' 1978. * '' 'N Tyd om lief te he'', Randburg : Ons Eie Boekklub, 1981. *''In hierdie silwerkruik'' Pretoria : Van der Walt, 1989. *''Pad na Monomotapa'' Pretoria : Unibook, 1990.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blignaut, Toek 1922 births 2007 deaths People from Bloemfontein 20th-century South African women writers 20th-century South African writers