About the Author
Therese Benadé was born in1942 in Volksrust, South Africa. She went to school in Rustenburg and then to the University of Stellenbosch. In 1963 she was awarded a BA degree in English and French.
Therese is at present living in Ipswich, Massachusetts with her husband, Jim. She has had the good fortune to have lived and traveled in many different countries during her life. Previous homes include: South Africa, Rhodesia, England, Canada, Brazil, Pakistan and Indonesia.
Language has played a significant role in Therese’s life: she is bilingual, Afrikaans being her mother tongue. She is also a friendly conversationalist in Dutch, German, French and Portuguese, and gets along in Italian, Spanish, Urdu and Indonesian. This passion for languages has led her to teach children in Afrikaans and French as a Second Language. She has also taught deaf children, Orff Music for Children and piano. Even now, she regularly ventures into the classroom as a substitute teacher.
Therese’s interests are rich and varied. She plays the piano and recorder and is an avid concert-goer. She likes to do counted cross-stitch and hardanger embroidery, crochet and knit, practise calligraphy and decorate Ukrainian Easter eggs. When there are mulberry leaves she raises silkworms. She also like collecting shells, fossils, beads and textiles.
Writing is now her life’s focus. It has taken many years of speaking and reading before she had the confidence to use the English language as a creative writing tool. She calls her first two novels ‘exercise books’. She still thinks of the publication of Kites of Good Fortune as a pure stroke of luck. Even more unexpected was its translation into Afrikaans under the title Anna, Dogter van Angela van Bengale.
The author is featured in Stellenbosch Writers, a compendium of writers who studied at the University of Stellenbosch.
In an interview published in the Alhamra Literary Review she answers questions about her ideas and motivation for writing.
She is currently looking for a publisher for The Layered Life of Tok-Tokkie and Bluestocking, another ‘roots’ novel tracing her cultural and intellectual heritage.
