Wys my waar is Timboektoe by Hennie Aucamp

Wys my waar is Timboektoe (First Edition Afrikaans Travel Anthology in Dust Jacket)

Hennie Aucamp's Sweeping Anthology of Afrikaans and Translated Writing on Africa, in Its Illustrated Jacket

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: Wys my waar is Timboektoe: 'n Persoonlike reis deur Afrika
• Author: Hennie Aucamp
• Publisher: Tafelberg, Kaapstad
• Publication Date: 1997
• ISBN-13: 9780624035473
• ISBN-10: 0624035476
• Edition Details: First Edition (Eerste uitgawe). Compiled and introduced by Hennie Aucamp.
• Binding: Publisher's orange-brown cloth boards with printed, illustrated dust jacket, protected in a clear archival-type plastic cover.
• Physical Format: Medium-to-large octavo, a thick volume of over 500 pages with a bibliography. Title page and jacket back carry skull drawings by Judith Mason.
• Language: Afrikaans

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Very Good Plus (VG+)
• Exterior / Boards: The plain orange-brown cloth boards beneath the jacket are clean, with a straight spine and sharp corners as far as can be seen. No fading is visible to the spine.
• Interior: The text block is clean and tight, with evenly toned cream pages and a sound binding. There is slight foxing or dust marking at the fore-edge of the opening pages and a few specks to the page edges. Text pages are free of markings.
• The Dust Jacket: Present and intact, protected in a durable archival-type plastic cover. The cream, glossy spine shows no visible fading. There is a small round spot or hole at the upper right of the front panel near the top edge, slight creasing at the lower left of the back panel, and light rubbing and edge wear to the edges. The flap text is complete and legible.

Synopsis & Historical Value

Published by Tafelberg in Cape Town in 1997, Wys my waar is Timboektoe, subtitled 'n Persoonlike reis deur Afrika (A personal journey through Africa), is an extensive anthology of travel writing in original and translated Afrikaans, compiled and commented on by Hennie Aucamp. The title points to Timbuktu, the ancient oasis city on the Niger in northern Mali.

The collection gathers short stories, fairy tales, extracts from novels, diaries, travel journals and factual works, running from early writers to modern ones and including translations of well-known foreign authors. Aucamp's own commentary ties the selections together as a personal itinerary rather than a dry survey.

Scholars have described the book as a deliberate literary-historical survey of the wealth of natural knowledge, culture and customs recorded of groups such as the Griqua and San. It is a substantial and rewarding reference for readers of Afrikaans literature and of travel writing on Africa.

Author Profile: Hennie Aucamp

Hennie Aucamp (1934-2014) was born in Dordrecht in the Eastern Cape and became one of the best-known Afrikaans writers of his generation: a poet, short story writer, cabaretist and academic. His prose debut, Een somermiddag: landelike sketse en vertellings, appeared in 1963.

He joined the Afrikaans department of Stellenbosch University's Faculty of Education in 1964 and retired in 1994. His honours include the Hertzog Prize for Literature for his prose output, and his Gekaapte tyd won the Recht Malan Prize for non-fiction. Other titles include In die vroegte, Kommerkrale, Kort voor lank and In lande ver vandaan.