Another poet of the 1930s was Elisabeth Eybers, whose verse dealt initially with the intimate confessions of women but broadened out to a penetrating, objective approach to love, exile, old age, and the poetical craft. Besides writing vivid romantic poetry, Uys Krige was also a short-story writer and playwright and a fine translator from the Romance languages. The poet D.J. Opperman came into...

...poets known as the Dertigers (“Thirtyers,” or writers of the 1930s) infuriated conservative Afrikaners with a new type of poetry. The poetry of W.E.G. Louw, N.P. van Wyk Louw, and Elisabeth Eybers was at the heart of this fertile activity, which centred on experimentation with form. Van Wyk Louw’s Raka (1941) is a rhymed study of evil, with Raka as...