Boerejood

Overview

Depicts South Africa through the eyes of a Boerejood, a half-Afrikaans, half-Jewish writer who struggles with issues of race and identity, as does his nation.

Reviews

“Julian Roup is an Afrikaner in exile: or rather, a part-Afrikaner, son of an Afrikaner mother and a Jewish father, a Boerejood. Boer, once a title worn with pride, became Roup writes: ‘a label of contempt in the mouths of other white South Africans and hatred in the mouths of blacks.’ Roup had himself seen them – his own people – as ‘hypocritical racists who gave us apartheid.’And yet ... ‘despite everything, Afrikaans forms one of the chambers of my heart, and as such it must survive if I am to live fully.’His piece is a delicate exploration of a society 10 years after the end of apartheid and the onset of majority rule. He has no nostalgia for the old regime, but immense sadness for the embattlement of the Afrikaans language and culture. The small society of Afrikaner liberals now feels a little of the discrimination they opposed: and many see no future for the culture except in racial ghettoes – which they do not want.It may be that the language and the culture – losing, bit by bit, its oppressive connotations – will survive, even flourish. After all, the great poet and also an exile, Breyten Breytenbach, still writes in Afrikaans.But maybe, as the Afrikaners say: ‘Die koeel is deur die kerk – en die dominee is dood.’ Which means, literally, ‘The bullet is through the church and the vicar is dead,’ or, as the English saying less vividly has it, ‘It’s too late for tears.’” —John Lloyd, Editor, Financial Times Saturday Magazine

Author Biography

Julian Roup was born and lived in Cape Town for the first 30 years of his life. He started his working life as a biscuit salesman before doing a journalism degree at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. He moved to England in 1980 and worked in local journalism in Sussex before changing direction once more to work in PR consultancies in London. He later founded his own PR consultancy, which he ran for 10 years. He is the author of A Fisherman in the Saddle, a book about his twin passions, fishing and horse riding. He currently works for an international fine art auction house in London. He is married with two children and lives in the Kent-Sussex border country known as the Weald.