Gertrud Irene (Klipp) Strauss was born on 26th October, 1936 and grew up in the farming area of the Natal midlands. Her parents were both of German origin, descended from Lutheran missionaries and farmers who settled in Natal during the mid-1800s. She went to school in Harburg and Hermannsburg, studied at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg (MA thesis on Wolfgang Borchert’s short stories) and taught in the English Department of the University of South Africa. A brief study period followed in Cambridge in 1963 after her marriage to Peter Strauss. He took up a lecturing post in Durban in 1964 and she began writing in 1974 when the youngest (of three) children went to nursery school. Since 1992 she has also been involved in publishing.
Books by Gertrud Strauss:
Fiction:
Three Women out of Love (2013)
A Putzig Sense of Proportion (2010)
Chapters of Childhood (2006)
The Blood Spot and Other Stories (1999)
Books for Children:
Ducks in the Drought (tr. as Amadada Nesomiso)
Busisiwe goes to the Graduation Party
(tr. as Ubusisiwe uya emcimbini wokwethweswa kweziqu
Vusi the Stone Collector (tr. as UVusi Umqoqi Wamatshe)
Nandipha discovers Marie Curie
Publications in Journals:
Short Story: ‘Circus Style’
Reality March 1975
Short Story: ‘Digs’
Reality January 1976
Short Story: ‘Anyway, no white man here would think like this’
Reality March 1977
Short Story: ‘Tramping on each other’
Reality May 1978
Short Story: ‘Farm Day – Farm Night’
Contrast 49 Winter 1980
Short Story: ‘Widows’ Talk’
Staffrider Vol 1 No 1 March 1978
Monologue: ‘Good Man on Mondays’
Frontline June 1983
Poem: ‘Fallacious would-be Motor Racer’
Anacrisis 1 Dec 1985
Poem: ‘Trust her to Write’
Writers’ Ring Magazine Dec 1985
Short Story: ‘Freedom Concert’
Contrast Vol 15 No 4, 25th Anniversary Edition Dec 1985 or ‘86
Short Story: ‘Picking up the Pieces’
Green Dragon — poetry and prose – number 3
Dye Hard Press – Editor Gary Cummiskey
Poem: ‘Mother and Daughter Crossing the Yard’
Agenda No 38, 1998
Poem: ‘Oh Miriam, oh Miriam’
WOSA 2000
Short Story: ‘Old-Age Place’
New Contrast 114, 2000 or 2001
Poem: ‘Psalm 23’
Junge Kirche 4/01 and in Rhein Weiber 9, Nov 2002
Poem: ‘Psalm 23 – in Words of Women’ transl. of German original
WOSA Newsletter 2002
Short Story: ‘Of German & English Neighbours & Cows & Buckshot’
The Short Story Review of Southern Africa Vol 2 Number 1 2003
Edited by MG Andrew
Short Story: ‘Squashed Gecko’
Botsotso No 12
Publications in Anthologies
Short Story: ‘Farm Day – Farm Night’
New Stories 6 (Hutchinsons with the Arts Council of GB & PEN 1981)
Short Story: ‘Widows’ Talk’
Under the Southern Cross (Ad Donker Ed: Adey 1982)
Monologue: ‘Privileged Choices’
LIP from Southern African Women (Ravan Press 1983)
Poem: ‘Mothers’
Breaking the Silence – A Century of South African Women’s Poetry
Edited by Cecily Lockett AD Donker Publisher 1990
Poem: ‘3.5 Years After’
ADA 1994
