Ingrid Jonker archive returns home to South Africa after decades in Europe

She is regarded as one of the most seminal figures in Afrikaans writing, and now the archive of poet Ingrid Jonker has been returned home to South Africa, after many years of custodianship in Europe.

Jonker, who was educated at Wynberg Girls' School in Cape Town and studied at the University of Stellenbosch, began writing poetry when she was six years old.

She would later become a member of the anti-establishment 'Sestigers' and became known as a liberal voice who advocated for Black South Africans.

Jonker took her own life in 1965 at the age of 31, and Professor Emeritus Louise Viljoen of the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch at Stellenbosch says she produced a small but poetic oeuvre during her short life.

"She died very early, so one will never know what she would have been capable of," says Viljoen.

Her membership of the Sestigers, alongside the likes of Andre Brink and Adam Small, helped form a renewal of Afrikaans literature.

Viljoen explains that Jonker formed part of a group of politically engaged writers in Cape Town.

"I think that as a poet, people know her for the clarity and lyrical purity of her work, and also her rich and dark emotional texture."

The political engagement in her writing was relatively unheard of at the time.

"For that, I think she will remain significant in Afrikaans," suggest Viljoen.

Now, 60 years after her death, an archive of Jonker's work, made up of manuscripts, letters, and photographs, has been returned to South Africa.

It had been taken to Europe over 25 years ago, where it had been kept at the Museum of Literature in The Hague, The Netherlands.

The process to repatriate Jonker's archive began some years ago, facilitated, in part, by her only daughter, Simone, who died in 2023, explains Ellen Tise, senior director at the Library and Information Services Department at Stellenbosch University.

"Over the years, there were several attempts by the trust and others to bring the collection back," says Tise.

The collection is currently housed at the University of Stellenbosch's Library and Information Service Manuscripts Section, as part of its Special Collections.

To listen to Viljoen and Tise in conversation with CapeTalk's Pippa Hudson, click below: