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Sir Laurens Jan van der Post, CBE (13 December 1906 – 16 December 1996) was a 20th-century Afrikaner author, farmer, war hero, political adviser to British heads of government, close friend of Prince Charles, godfather of Prince William, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer and conservationist. However his reputation took a battering after his death. ==Early years and education== Van der Post was born in the small town of Philippolis in the Orange River Colony, the post-Boer War British name for what had previously been the Afrikaner Orange Free State in what is today South Africa. His father, Christiaan Willem Hendrik van der Post (1856–1914), a Hollander from Leiden, had emigrated to South Africa with his parents and married Johanna Lubbe in 1889. The van der Posts had a total of 13 children, with Laurens being the 13th, the fifth son. Christiaan was a lawyer and politician, and fought in the Second Boer War against the British. After the Second Boer War he was exiled with his family to Stellenbosch, where Laurens was conceived. They returned to Philippolis in the Orange River Colony, where he was born in 1906. He spent his early childhood years on the family farm, and acquired a taste for reading from his father's extensive library, which included Homer and Shakespeare. His father died in August 1914. In 1918 van der Post went to school at Grey College in Bloemfontein. There, he wrote, it was a great shock to him that he was "being educated into something which destroyed the sense of common humanity I shared with the black people". In 1925 he took his first job as a reporter in training at ''The Natal Advertiser'' in Durban, where his reporting included his own accomplishments playing on the Durban and Natal field hockey teams. In 1926 he and two other rebellious writers, Roy Campbell and William Plomer, published a satirical magazine called ''Voorslag'' ((英語:whip lash)) which criticised imperialist systems; it lasted for three issues before being forced to shut down because of its controversial views. Later that year he took off for three months with Plomer and sailed to Tokyo and back on a Japanese freighter, the ''Canada Maru'', an experience which produced books by both authors later in life. In 1927 Van der Post met Marjorie Edith Wendt (d. 1995), daughter of the founder and conductor of the Cape Town Orchestra. They traveled to England and on 8 March 1928, married at Bridport, Dorset. A son was born soon after on 26 December, named Jan Laurens (later known as John). In 1929 van der Post returned to South Africa to work for the ''Cape Times'', a newspaper in Cape Town, where "For the time being Marjorie and I are living in the most dire poverty that exists," he wrote in his journal. He began to associate with bohemians and intellectuals who were opposed to James Hertzog (Prime Minister) and the white South African policy. In an article entitled 'South Africa in the Melting Pot', which clarified his views of the South Africa racial problem, he said "The white South African has never consciously believed that the native should ever become his equal." But he predicted that "the process of leveling up and inter-mixture must accelerate continually ... the future civilization of South Africa is, I believe, neither black or white but brown." In 1931 he returned to England and formed friendships with members of the Bloomsbury group including Arthur Waley, J. M. Keynes, E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf. Virginia and her husband Leonard Woolf were publishers, and had previously published William Plomer's works, and it was through Plomer's connections that van der Post gained introduction to the Woolfs and the Bloomsbury Set. In 1934 the Woolfs published van der Post's first novel under the Hogarth Press label. Called ''In a Province'', it portrayed the tragic consequences of a racially and ideologically divided South Africa. Later that year he decided to become a dairy farmer and, possibly with the help of Lilian Bowes Lyon, bought a farm called Colley Farm, near Tetbury, Gloucestershire, with Lilian as his neighbor. There he divided his time between the needs of the cows and occasional visits to London where he was a correspondent to South African newspapers. He considered this a directionless phase in his life which mirrored Europe's slow drift to war. In 1936 he made five trips to South Africa and during one trip he met and fell in love with Ingaret Giffard (d. 1997), an English actress and author five years his senior. Later that year his wife Marjorie gave birth to a second child, a daughter named Lucia, and in 1938 he sent his family back to South Africa. When the Second World War started in 1939 he found himself torn between England and South Africa, his new love and his family; his career was at a dead end, and he was in depressed spirits, often drinking heavily. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Laurens van der Post」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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