author
D'Arbez
1856–1918
A South African writer who helped bridge the gap between the first and second Afrikaans language movements, he is best remembered for lively historical novels published under the pen name D'Arbez. His work looked back to the Cape's past and helped shape an early reading culture in Afrikaans and Dutch.
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About the author
Born in Cape Town on 20 November 1856 as Johan Frederik van Oordt, he became widely known by the pen name D'Arbez. He came from a literary and scholarly family, spent his school years in the Netherlands, and later returned to South Africa, where he worked as a teacher before turning seriously to writing.
He wrote numerous historical novels in Dutch and Afrikaans, and sources describe him as an important transitional figure between the first and second Afrikaans language movements. His pseudonym, D'Arbez, is often explained as a playful reversal of the word "zebra."
Van Oordt died in Somerset West on 6 September 1918. Today he is remembered mainly for the way his fiction connected popular storytelling with the early growth of Afrikaans literature.