Audrey Jantjies
Writer and project manager
Audrey has lived in Railton for many years. Her job as a project manager for the engineering company Delta means she’s often on the road, but writing will always be her first love.
She was born in a “poorest-of-the-poor two-room cottage” in the neighbouring town of Suurbraak, and her complicated upbringing, as well as her current life, are a constant source of inspiration for her work and her blog, !Xairu Queen, which she initially wrote in English only. But then Audrey discovered the potential of her mother tongue, Afrikaans, during a writing course that the award-winning novelist Ingrid Winterbach presented at the Swellendam Winter School in 2019.
Last year, she was selected for the Jakes Gerwel Foundation mentorship programme, and one of her stories was selected for the Stellenbosch University Woordfees anthology of short stories. Audrey’s debut novel, As die Katjiepiering Blom, has also been accepted for publication. The coming-of-age story of Lea Floris is also set in the Overberg and Cape Town. (“I lived in the Cape for a few years, in Sea Point, but it was during the years of the Nigerian invasion,” she says.)
“I write about this place because it’s where my ancestry lies. Whenever I return from a work trip, I think to myself that no other town is quite as beautiful as Swellendam or Suurbraak.
