Updated
Cape Town - Highly regarded academic, poet, and writer Adam Small has died at the age of 79, according to media reports on Saturday.
He reportedly died in the early hours following a "complicated operation" on Friday.
Small was honoured by the City of Cape Town in April 2011, and according to the citation in the city’s civic honours book, Small was treasured for his mostly Afrikaans works that highlighted the lives and oppression of the working class under the apartheid regime.
Born in Wellington in the Western Cape on December 21, 1936, he was raised on a farm in Goree, outside Robertson, where his father was the school principal, community leader, and lay preacher to farm labourers.
"Adam was exposed to the faith of the Dutch Reformed Church and Islam through paternal and maternal influences. This taught him cultural and religious tolerance. His family moved to Retreat on the Cape Flats where Adam discovered the Kaaps vernacular that characterises his writing," the citation says.
After attending several Catholic schools and matriculating in 1953, he obtained a degree in languages and philosophy and an MA cum laude on the philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann and Friedrich Nietzsche at the University of Cape Town. He was appointed lecturer in philosophy at the University of Fort Hare in 1959 and at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in 1960. He was also a past professor of English literature at the latter institution.
His activism and involvement with the Black Consciousness Movement forced him to move to Johannesburg for some years, before returning to Cape Town in 1977. In 1983 he rejoined UWC as head of the department of social work, where he retired in 1997.
"Adam’s first published collection of poetry was ‘Verse van die Liefde’ (1957). This was followed by ‘Klein Simbool’ (1958). In his poetry collections ‘Kitaar My Kruis’ (1961) and ‘Sê Sjibbolet’ (1963) he criticises apartheid policies and racial discrimination. The theme is echoed in his long essay ‘Die Eerste Steen’, which looks at the influence of apartheid on race relations.
"In ‘Kô Lat Ons Sing’ it is evident that he uses his writing as a weapon in the struggle to free his people. ‘Oos Wes Tuis Bes Distrik Ses’ (1973) is a book of poems that pays homage to the lives affected by the forced removal of the entire District Six community," the citation says.
Other work included A Brown Afrikaner Speaks: A Coloured Poet and Philosopher Looks Ahead (1971); Black Bronze Beautiful (1975), a series of lyrical verses that demonstrate pride in black history and culture; Oh Wide and Sad Land: Afrikaans poetry of NP van Wyk Louw (1975), translated into English by Adam; and District Six (1986, with photographer Chris Jansen).
African News Agency