Sir Laurens Jan van der Post by Frances Baruch

Sir Laurens Jan van der Post (aka Laurens van der Post) December 13, 1906 – December 16, 1996. Famous 20th century Afrikaner author of many books, farmer, war hero, political adviser to British heads of government, godparent of Prince William, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer, and conservationist. This work is copyrighted. ... This work is copyrighted. ... December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... -1... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... This article is about the South African ethnic group. ... A chained book in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University A Chinese bamboo book, in a collection at the University of California, Riverside. ... Traditional Eastern European Farmer Woman. ... Sir Galahad, a hero of Arthurian legend, detail of a painting by George Frederic Watts From the Greek , in mythology and folklore, a hero (male) or heroine (female) usually fulfills the definitions of what is considered good and noble in the originating culture. ... A godparent, in some denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a childs baptism. ... HRH Prince William of Wales William Arthur Philip Louis His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales (William Arthur Philip Louis Mountbatten-Windsor) (born June 21, 1982) is a member of the British Royal Family, grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and first son of Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Humanitarianism is the view that all people should be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve as human beings, and that advancing the well-being of humanity is a noble goal. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... See also explorations, sea explorers, astronaut, conquistador, travelogue, the History of Science and Technology and Biography. ... Conservationists are those people who tend to more highly rank the wise use of the Earths resources and ecosystems. ...

Early years

Laurens was born in the small town of Philippolis in the Orange River Colony, a British colony in what is today South Africa. His father, Christiaan Willem Hendrik van der Post (1856–1914), of Dutch origin, had arrived in South Africa at the age of three and later married Laurens's mother in 1889. Her name was Lammie and she was of German origin. The family had a total of fifteen children, with Laurens being the thirteenth, 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 Philipolis in the Orange River Colony in 1906, where Laurens was born. Philippolis is a small town in the Free State Province of South Africa. ... Flag of Orange River Colony The Orange River Colony was a British colony created by the annexation of the Orange Free State in 1900, after the Boer War. ... Combatants United Kingdom Australia New Zealand Canada Cape Colony Orange Free State South African Republic Commanders Redvers Buller Frederick Roberts Herbert Kitchener Paul Kruger Martinus Steyn Louis Botha Christiaan de Wet Casualties 22,000 6,500 Civilians killed [mainly Boers]: 24,000+ The Second Boer War, commonly referred to as... Stellenbosch is the second oldest European settlement in South Africa after Cape Town, and is located in the Western Cape Province. ...

Laurens spent his early childhood years on the family farm, remembering how he became a fan of reading books from his father's extensive library which included Homer and Shakespeare. In August 1914 his father died and then in 1918 Laurens went to school at Grey College in Bloemfontein. There 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 (English: whip lash) which promoted a more racially integrated South Africa; it lasted for three issues before being forced to shut down because of its radical 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. 1914 (MCMXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Grey College located in Bloemfontein, South Africa, founded in 1859 is the third oldest in the Republic of South Africa. ... Bloemfontein at night Bloemfontein (IPA: , Afrikaans and Dutch for fountain of Bloem (bloom) or flower fountain is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa. ... The Daily News is the name of several daily newspapers. ... Durban (Zulu: eThekwini (IPA: ) is the second most populous city in South Africa, forming part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. ... A game of field hockey in progress Field hockey is a popular sport for men and women in many countries around the world; it is the second most popular team sport after football (soccer)[]. Its official name and the one by which it is usually known is hockey [1][2... Roy Campbell (1901-1957) Roy Campbell (2 October 1901 – 22 April 1957) was a South African poet and satirist. ... William Charles Franklyn Plomer (he pronounced the surname as ploomer) (1903 - 1973) was a South African author, known as a novelist, poet and literary editor. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

In 1927 Lauren met Marjorie Edith Wendt (d. 1995), daughter of the founder and conductor of the Cape Town Orchestra. They traveled to England and on March 8, 1928 married at Bridport, Dorset. A son was born soon after on December 26, named Jan Laurens (later known as John). In 1929 Laurens 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 rebel Bohemians and intellectuals who were opposed to James Hertzog (Prime Minister) and the white South African policy. He wrote 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." Bridport is a town in Dorset, England. ... Dorset (pronounced DOR-sit or [dÉ”.sÉ™t], and sometimes in the past called Dorsetshire) is a county in the south-west of England, on the English Channel coast. ... City motto: Spes Bona (Latin: Good Hope) Location of the City of Cape Town in Western Cape Province Province Western Cape Mayor Helen Zille Area  - % water 2,499 km² N/A Population  - Total (2004)  - Density Not ranked 2,893,251 1,158/km² Established 1652 Time zone SAST (UTC+2... Cover of Time Magazine (April 27, 1925) James Barry Munnik Hertzog, better known as Barry Hertzog, (1866-1942) was Prime Minister of South Africa from 1924 to 1939. ... This is a list of South African Prime Ministers. ...

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 Plomers's works, and it was through Plomer's connections that Laurens gained introduction to the Woolfs and the somewhat exclusive and scandalous "Bloomsberries". The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set or just Bloomsbury, as its adherents would generally refer to it, was an English group of artists and scholars that existed from around 1905 until around World War II. // History The group began as an informal socialwe have been great to society assembly of... Arthur David Waley (August 19, 1889 – June 27, 1966) was a noted English Orientalist and Sinologist. ... John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes [ˈkeɪns], 1st Baron Keynes of Tilton (June 5, 1883 - April 21, 1946) was an English economist, whose radical ideas had a major impact on modern economic and political thought. ... E. M. Forster aged 36 in 1915 Edward Morgan Forster (January 1, 1879 – June 7, 1970) was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist. ... Virginia Woolf (née Stephen) (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) was an English novelist and essay writer who is regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century. ... Leonard Woolf (November 25, 1880 – August 14, 1969) married Virginia Woolf in 1912. ...

In 1934 the Woolfs published Laurens's first novel under the Hogarth Press label. Called In a Province, it portrayed the tragic consequences of a racially 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. The Hogarth Press was founded in 1917 by Leonard and Virginia Woolf. ... Lilian Bowes-Lyon (or Bowes Lyon) (1895 - 1949) was a British poet. ... Tetbury is a town and civil parish located in Cotswold (district), Gloucestershire, England. ... Gloucestershire (pronounced ; GLOSS-ter-sher) is a county in South West England. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ...

War years

Cover of Admiral's Baby (1996), a portrait of Laurens during the war years.

In May 1940 Laurens volunteered for the British Army and upon completion of officer training in January 1941 he was sent to east Africa in the Intelligence Corps as a Captain. There he took up with General Wingate's Gideon Force which was tasked with restoring the Emperor Haile Selassie to his throne in Abyssinia. His unit led 11,000 camels through difficult mountain terrain and he was remembered for being an excellent caretaker of the animals. In March he came down with malaria and was sent to Palestine to recover. In early 1942 he was transferred to the Dutch East Indies because of his Dutch language skills. He was placed in command of "special mission 43", whose purpose was to organize an allied retreat after the Japanese invasion of Java. This image is a book cover. ... This image is a book cover. ... The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ... Major General Orde Charles Wingate, (February 26, 1903 – March 24, 1944), was a British major general and creator of two special military units during the World War II. // Beginnings Orde Wingate was born February 23, 1903 in India to a military family. ... The Gideon Force was a British-led African guerrilla force fighting the Italian occupation forces in Abyssiania (modern-day Ethiopia) during the World War II. Leader and creator of the force was British major Charles Orde Wingate. ... Haile Selassie Haile Selassie (Power of Trinity) (July 23, 1892 – August 27, 1975) was the last Emperor (1930–1936; 1941–1974) of Ethiopia, and is a religious symbol in the Rastafarian movement. ... This article needs cleanup. ... Species Camelus bactrianus Camelus dromedarius Camelus gigas Camelus hesternus Camelus sivalensis Camels are even-toed ungulates in the genus Camelus. ... Malaria is a vector-borne infectious disease that is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions. ... Map of the British Mandate of Palestine. ... The Dutch East Indies, or Netherlands East Indies, (Dutch: Nederlands-Indië) was the name of the colonies set up by the Dutch East India Company, which came under administration of the Netherlands during the 19th century (see Indonesia). ... Java (Indonesian, Javanese, and Sundanese: Jawa) is an island of Indonesia, and the site of its capital city, Jakarta. ...

On April 20, 1942 he was captured by the Japanese. He was first taken to Soekaboemi (Sukabumi) camp and then to Bandoeng. He played a legendary role in keeping up the morale of troops from many different nationalities. Along with other compatriots he organized a "camp university" with courses from basic literacy to degree-standard ancient history, and he also organized a camp farm to supplement nutritional needs. He could also speak some basic Japanese, which helped him greatly. Once, depressed, he wrote in his diary: "it is one of the hardest things in this prison life: the strain caused by being continually in the power of people who are only half-sane and live in a twilight of reason and humanity." He wrote about his experiences in A Bar of Shadow (1954) and The Seed and the Sower (1963). Japanese film director Nagisa Oshima based his film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1982) mainly on The Seed and the Sower. Sukabumi is a city and regency in the highlands of West Java, Indonesia, about 80 km (50 miles) south of Jakarta. ... A view of Bandung from the northern highlands Bandung (formerly spelled: Bandoeng) is the provincial capital of West Java, Indonesia. ... Nagisa Oshima (大島 渚 Ōshima Nagisa, born March 31, 1932) is a famous Japanese director. ... Merry Christmas, Mr. ...

While his fellow POWs left for home, Laurens remained in Java, and on September 15th, 1945 he joined Admiral William Patterson on the HMS Cumberland for the official surrender of the Japanese to the British. William Patterson was a 19th century American politician. ... There have been sixteen ships named HMS Cumberland in the Royal Navy. ...

He then spent two years helping to mediate between Indonesian nationalists and members of the discredited Dutch colonial regime. He had gained trust with the nationalist leaders such as Mohammad Hatta and Ahmed Sukarno and warned both Mountbatten and prime minister Clement Attlee, whom he met in London in October 1945, that the country was on the verge of blowing up. He went to The Hague to repeat his warning directly to the Dutch cabinet. In November, 1946 British forces withdrew and he became military attaché to the British consulate in Batavia, but by 1947, after he had returned to England, his worst fears came to pass: Indonesia collapsed into the civil war which led to independence. Soon after in the same year, he retired from the army and was made a CBE. Mohammad Hatta Mohammad Hatta (born August 12, 1902, Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia); died March 14, 1980, Jakarta) was Indonesias first vice president, after being the countrys Prime Minister. ... Sukarno Sukarno (June 6, 1901 - June 21, 1970) was the first President of Indonesia. ... Mountbatten is the family name adopted by two branches of the Battenberg family due to rising anti-German sentiment among the British public during World War I. On 14 July 1917, Prince Louis of Battenberg assumed the surname Mountbatten (a literal translation of the German Battenberg) for himself and his... Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, FRS, PC (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1945 to 1951. ... Arms of The Hague Flag of The city of The Hague. ... Jakarta (also Djakarta or DKI Jakarta), formerly known as Sunda Kelapa, Jayakarta and Batavia is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. ... Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire (Military division) The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority...

Rise to fame

With the war over and his business with the army concluded, Laurens returned to South Africa in late 1947 to work at the Natal Daily News, but with the election victory of the National Party bringing in apartheid he came back to London. In May 1949 he was commissioned by the Colonial Development Corporation (CDC) to "assess the livestock capacities of the uninhabited Nyika and Mlanje plateaux of Nyasaland". The National Party (Afrikaans: Nasionale Party) (with its members sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats) was the governing party of South Africa from June 4th 1948 until May 9th 1994, and was disbanded in 2005. ... The Mijikenda (literally the nine cities, historically called the Nyika or Nika by outsiders. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ...

Around this time he divorced Marjorie, and on October 13, 1949 married Ingaret Giffard. Before he married Ingaret, he had become engaged to Fleur Kohler-Baker, the daughter of a prominent farmer and businessman, who was seventeen years old; they had met on a ship with an intense but brief affair of love letters, and so she was shocked when he broke off the relationship. He went on a honeymoon with Ingaret to Switzerland where his new wife introduced him to Carl Jung. Jung was to have probably a greater influence upon him than anybody else, and he later said that he had never met anyone of Jung's stature. He continued to work on a travel book about his Nyasaland adventures called Venture to the Interior, which borrowed on the structure of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Carl Jungs partially autobiographical work Memories , Dreams, Reflections, Fontana edition “Karl Jung” redirects here. ... Joseph Conrad. ... Heart of Darkness is a novella by Joseph Conrad. ...

Cover of The Lost World of the Kalahari (1958)

In 1950 Lord Reith (head of the CDC) asked Laurens to head an expedition to Bechuanaland, to see the potential of the remote Kalahari Desert for cattle ranching. There Laurens for the first time met the Kalahari natives, a hunter-gatherer bush people known as San. He repeated the journey to the Kalahari in 1952, the same year Venture to the Interior was published, and it became an immediate best-seller in the US and Europe. In 1954 he published his third book Flamingo Feather, an anti-communist novel about a Soviet plot to take over South Africa, which sold very well. Alfred Hitchcock planned to film the book, but lost support from South African authorities and gave up the idea. Penguin Books kept Flamingo Feather in print until the collapse of the U.S.S.R.. In 1955 the BBC commissioned Laurens to return to the Kalahari in search of the bushmen, a trip that turned into a very popular six-part television documentary series in 1956. In 1958 his most famous book was released under the same title as the BBC series: The Lost World of the Kalahari, followed in 1961 by The Heart of the Hunter, derived from 19th-century Bushmen stories by Wilhelm Bleek. This image is a book cover. ... This image is a book cover. ... The Bechuanaland Protectorate (BP) was a protectorate established in 1885 by Britain in the area of what is now Botswana. ... The Kalahari Desert is a large, arid to semi-arid sandy area in southern Africa that covers about 500,000 km². It covers 70% of Botswana, and parts of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. ... Ranching is the raising of cattle or sheep on rangeland, although one might also speak of ranching with regard to less common livestock such as elk, bison or emu. ... San or SAN can refer to any of the following: Look up San in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Look up san in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (August 13, 1899 – April 29, 1980) was a highly influential film director and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and thriller genres. ... Penguin Books is a British publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. ... Soviet redirects here. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion... Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek (March 8, 1827 - August 17, 1875) was a German linguist. ...

Laurens described the bushmen as the original natives of southern Africa, outcast and persecuted by all other races and nationalities. He said they represented the "lost soul" of all mankind, a type of noble savage myth. This mythos of the Bushmen inspired the colonial government to create the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 1961 to guarantee their survival, and the reserve became a part of settled law when Botswana was created in 1966. A section of Benjamin Wests The Death of General Wolfe; Wests depiction of this Native American has been considered an idealization in the tradition of the Noble savage (Fryd, 75) In the 18th century culture of Primitivism the noble savage, uncorrupted by the influences of civilization was considered... Central Kalahari Game Reserve is a National Park in Botswana. ...

Later years

Cover of Storyteller.. by J.D.F. Jones, picture of Laurens in his later years.

Laurens's fame and success was now assured. He had become a popular television personality, had introduced the world to the Kalahari bushmen, and was considered an authority on Bushmen folklore and culture. "I was compelled towards the Bushmen," he said, "like someone who walks in his sleep, obedient to a dream of finding in the dark what the day has denied him." Over the next decade he had a steady stream of book releases, including novels drawn from his war experiences, The Seed and the Sower (1963) and The Night of the New Moon (1970). A travel book called A Journey into Russia (1964) described a long trip through the Soviet Union. In 1972 there was another BBC television series of his 16-year friendship with Jung, who died in 1961, which was followed by the book Jung and the Story of our Time (1976). This image is a book cover. ... This image is a book cover. ...

Ingaret and he moved to Aldeburgh, Suffolk where they became involved with a circle of friends that included an introduction to Prince Charles, whom he then took on a safari to Kenya in 1977 and with whom he had a close and influential friendship for the rest of his life. Also in 1977 he along with Ian Player, a South African conservationist, created the first World Wilderness Congress in Johannesburg. In 1979 his Chelsea neighbor Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister and she called on his advice with matters dealing with southern Africa, notably the Rhodesia settlement of 1979–80. In 1981 he was given a Knighthood. Map sources for Aldeburgh at grid reference TM4656 Aldeburgh is a town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England; it is located on the Alde river at 52° North, 1° East 1. ... Suffolk (pronounced ) is a large historic and modern non-metropolitan county in the East Anglia region of eastern England. ... Prince Charles may refer to: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, current heir-apparent to the British throne Any of the previous British royals named Charles, Prince of Wales The former Belgian regent, Prince Charles of Belgium This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that... Map of Africa 1890 Look up safari in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Dr. Ian Player DMS (born 1927, Johannesburg) is an international conservationist and the founder of the WILD Foundation and also the Wilderness Foundations in South Africa and the UK. He established the World Wilderness Congress, which first convened in Johannesburg in 1977. ... The World Wilderness Congress is the longest-running, public international environmental forum. ... City motto: Unity in Development Province Gauteng Mayor Amos Masondo Area  - % water 1,644 km² 0. ... Statue of Thomas More on Cheyne Walk. ... Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October 1925), is the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in office from 1979 to 1990. ... A prime minister is the very most senior minister of a cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. ... Anthem: Rise O Voices of Rhodesia (from 1974) Capital Salisbury Language(s) English Government Republic President¹  - 1970-1975 Clifford Dupont  - 1976-1978 John Wrathall Officer Administering the Government¹  - 1965-1970 Clifford Dupont Prime minister  - 1965-1979 Ian Smith Historical era Cold War  - Independence (UDI) November 11, 1965  - Republic declared March... The dignity of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. ...

In 1982 he fell and injured his back and used the downtime from tennis and skiing to write an autobiography called Yet Being Someone Other (1982), which discussed his love of the sea and his journey to Japan with Plomer in 1926. By now Ingaret was slipping into senility, and he spent much time with an old friend Frances Baruch. In 1984 his son John (who had gone on to be an engineer in London) died, and Laurens spent time with his youngest daughter Lucia and her family.

Even in old age Laurens was involved with many projects, from the worldwide conservationist movement, to setting up a centre of Jungian studies in Cape Town. He remained a captivating speaker and storyteller both in public and in private. In 1996 he tried to prevent the eviction of the bushmen from their homeland in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, which had been set up for that purpose, but ironically it was his work in the 1950s to promote the land for cattle ranching that lead to their eventual downfall and removal. In October 1996 he published The Admiral's Baby describing the events in Java at the end of the war. For his 90th birthday party he had a five-day celebration in Colorado, with a "this is your life" type event with friends from every period of his life. A few days later, on December 16th, 1996, after whispering in Afrikaans "die sterre" (the stars), he died. The funeral took place December 20th in London, attended by Prince Charles (who was photographed in tears) Lady Thatcher, Nelson Mandela and many friends and family. His ashes were buried in a special memorial garden at Philipolis on April 4th, 1998. Ingaret died five months after him on May 5th, 1997.

Controversy

After his death a number of writers discredited Laurens. It was alleged that in 1952 he had fathered a child with a fourteen-year-old girl who had been under his care during a sea voyage to England from South Africa. His reputation as a 'modern sage' and 'guru to Prince Charles' was questioned and journalists opened a floodgate of examples of how Laurens had not always told the truth in his books. These facts came together in the 2001 book by J.D.F. Jones Teller of Many Tales: The Lives of Laurens van der Post, a biography which damaged Laurens's reputation. A strong rebuttal was offered by Christopher Booker, a friend of Mr. Lauren's as well.[1] While Mr. Jones' book did interpret a darker side to Laurens's life, it did not diminish his popularity and he continued to strike a chord with many people. Nor could many of his wartime accomplishments and his conservation efforts be easily dismissed.

Selected works

Works mentioned in the article. For an extensive complete list see External links.

• In a Province, 1934
• Venture to the Interior, 1952
• Flamingo Feather, 1955
• The Lost World of the Kalahari, 1958 (BBC 6-part TV series, 1956)
• The Heart of the Hunter, 1961
• The Seed and the Sower, 1963
• A Journey into Russia, 1964 (US title: A View of All the Russias)
• The Night of the New Moon, August 6, 1945... Hiroshima, 1970 (US title: The Prisoner and the Bomb)
• Jung and the Story of Our Time, 1975
• Yet Being Someone Other, 1982
• The Admiral's Baby, 1996

Movies

Movie adaptations of his books; otherwise he is not in or involved directly with these movies.

• Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) —- Based on The Seed and the Sower (1963) and The Night of the New Moon (1970), about his experience as a prisoner of war. Starring David Bowie.
• A Far Off Place (1993) —- Based on A Far-Off Place (1974) and A Story Like the Wind (1972).

Merry Christmas, Mr. ... David Bowie (born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and audio engineer whose work spans five decades. ... A Far Off Place is a Disney film from 1993, starring Reese Witherspoon, Ethan Embry and Jack Thompson. ...

References

• Carpenter, Frederic I., Laurens Van Der Post. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc, 1969
• Voorslag 1-3 (1926): A Magazine of South African Life and Art, Roy Campbell, Laurens Van der Post, William Plomer, ISBN 0-86980-423-5
• Jones, J.D.F., Teller of Many Tales: The Lives of Laurens van der Post, 2001, ISBN 0-7867-1031-4 — Revisionist biography.

External links

• Complete published works by or about LvdP
• Images of LvdP, from the National Portrait Gallery.
• Obituary, from The Times, London. 17 December 1996
• "Laurens van der Post", from Contemporary Africa Database.