Dalene Matthee
Dalene Matthee (nee Scott) matriculated in 1957 and went on to study music at a conservatorium in Oudtshoorn as well as at the Holy Cross Covent in Graaff-Reinet.
Before gaining fame and wide acclaim for her first "forest novel", she also wrote stories for magazines as well as two popular novels - ’n Huis vir Nadia (A House for Nadia) (1982) and Petronella van Aarde, burgemeester (Petronella van Aarde, Mayor) (1983).
Kringe in ’n bos (Circles in a forest) (1984), a novel about the extermination of the elephants and the exploitation of the woodcutters of the Knysna forest, was an international success. Two other highly successful "forest novels" followed: Fiela se Kind (Fiela's Child) in 1985 and Moerbeibos (The Mulberry Forest) in 1987. Fiela's Child and Circles in a forest were filmed. She also won numerous literary prizes for her works.
After a short sickbed caused by heart failure, she died in Mossel Bay, South Africa. She was survived by her three daughters; her husband, Larius, died in 2003.
“The power of a woman was different, he decided: sly, fearless, changeable as the moods of the sea, but he knew instinctively that that was the power against which his own would be measured.”
“If he had to wish, what would he wish for, he asked himself. What was there to wish for... a wish asked for the unattainable. The impossible.”
“...unhappiness was something you got used to or something that passed.”
“But memories got left behind while you kept walking on; every time you had to retrace your steps further to return to your memories, and sometimes it was better not to turn back at all.”