Patricia Schonstein
Patricia Schonstein, who has also written under the name Patricia Schonstein Pinnock (born 1952) is a South African children's writer, poet and novelist.
Life
Born and raised in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Schonstein lives in South Africa. She was schooled in a convent for six years from the age of nine.[1] Later she lived in Grahamstown, where – observing the constant raids on homes in the black townships below, and realising the lack of black characters in children's books – she resolved to write her own stories, poems and songs for children.[2] After gaining a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Cape Town, supervised by J. M. Coetzee, she became a full-time author.[3] Her debut novel, Skyline, was shortlisted for the South African Sunday Times award for literature in 2001,[2] was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, won the Percy FitzPatrick Award in 2002 and won the French Priz du Marais.[3] The book was infamous for its extremely liberal writing on illegal immigrants.
Works
- Sing, Africa! poems and song for young children, 1990
- Thobileʼs dream, 1991
- Thobile and the Tortoises, 1992
- The king who loved birds, 1992
- Ouma's Autumn, 1993
- We call the whales : ecological poems and songs for children, 1993
- Xhosa: a cultural grammar for beginners, 1994
- Saturday in Africa : living history through poetry, 1996
- Skyline, 2000
- A gathering of madonnas, and other poems, 2001
- A Time of Angels, 2003
- The Apothecary's Daughter, 2004
- A Quilt of Dreams, 2006
- The Master's Ruse, 2008
- Banquet at Brabazan, 2010
References
- ↑ Patricia Schonstei, The bones and costumes of fictitious persons, 10 April 2012.
- 1 2 Helen Falconer, Cape Fear [review of A Time of Angels], The Guardian, 18 October 2003
- 1 2 Patricia Schonstein Pinnock