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Wessel Ebersohn

The Internationally Published Author

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Behind the scenes

The Writing of Closed Circle

The Writing of Closed Circle

The day in the late 1980s when I visited the Oudtshoorn township should have been an unremarkable one, but because a councillor of the township had been killed by a mob not long before, because I was being accompanied by a member of the local comrades and because the security

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Spring’s First Rain

Spring’s First Rain

The worst part of life on the Springbok Vlakte is the second half of winter. There is no rain whatever and the sun is a merciless tyrant, terrorising humans, burning the leaves off plants and turning the ground beneath your feet to dust. Spring is a different matter entirely. It

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The Death of My Olivetti

The Death of My Olivetti

We were living on the edge of the Knysna forest on the southern coast of Africa when my lovely old Olivetti typewriter and I parted ways in a traumatic fashion. When my eldest daughter presented me with a computer for my birthday I realised the personal computer had arrived, turning

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Manuscripts and Bumps on the Way

Manuscripts and Bumps on the Way

I started writing novels on an old Olivetti portable typewriter. I loved my Olivetti. At that time the IBM electric typewriters were the latest and most desired technology, but they were out of my price range. Also, they were heavy, whereas I could take my little portable with me wherever

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South Africa, political correctness and the thriller

South Africa, political correctness and the thriller

Probably because South Africa is still a new democracy, and yes, twenty-three years makes us still new, political correctness stalks the land. It gets in the way of novelists, movie makers, visual artists, in fact talented people of every kind who think for themselves. In some company, if you are

Wessel Ebersohn 22/11/201704/08/2022 Behind the Scenes, Musings Read more...

Getting to the core of the South African government

Getting to the core of the South African government

All of my Yudel Gordon novels take place at least partly in government offices, the early ones in offices of the Apartheid government and the latter ones offices of the democratic government. Creating a convincing picture of either can be a challenge. When writing about government and what takes place

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Landscape and the thriller

Landscape and the thriller

South Africa has landscapes of every type. For a medium sized country the variety of settings for a novel is astonishing. In romantic stories and rural epics the landscape often plays an important role. We have all seen Gerald O’Hara looking across his cotton fields and telling us that “Land

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The creation of Yudel Gordon

The creation of Yudel Gordon

All but one of my thrillers have Yudel Gordon as the central character. Down the years, many people have asked me on whom I based him. Usually I’ve tried to avoid the question. The truth is that he is an amalgamation of three real men, all of them psychologists, and

Wessel Ebersohn 22/09/201708/12/2022 Behind the Scenes, Musings, Writing the Book Read more...

Writing for a changing world

Writing for a changing world

For decades serious South African writers wrote largely about the ways Apartheid affected themselves and their countrymen. It was such a singular system, it contained so many aspects and such powerful material emerged from it, that it was impossible to ignore. Then came 1994 and for all of us everything

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Writing a South African novel

Writing a South African novel

Apart from only Klara’s Visitors, all my novels have been set in South Africa. This is not unusual among novelists from any country. Writers set their stories against backgrounds that they understand and have experienced. Among South African writers this is particularly true. When you live in a country as

Wessel Ebersohn 21/07/201708/12/2022 Behind the Scenes, Musings, Writing the Book Read more...
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