BEYOND BORDERS

Marita van der Vyver has been living in France for 20 years, so when she’s back in SA, she likes to seek out a little bit of ‘home’. ‘My friend Naretha Ricome, who is also an Afrikaans woman married to a Frenchman, always invites me to stay at her company’s wine farm when I’m in the Western Cape,’ she says. L’Avenir Country Lodge describes itself as ‘authentically South African with a touch of French’ – which is probably why Marita feels right at home here.

Marita actually started out as a young adult fiction writer but really made a name for herself with her controversial novel, () back in 1992. Despite drawing the ire of conservative readers for its explicit sex scenes, it became a bestseller, was reprinted several times and was awarded the