HONORARY DOCTORATE: Prof Marlene van Niekerk

Stellenbosch University (SU) awarded honorary doctorates to five exceptional individuals at its December graduation on Monday, 13 December 2021. Prof Marlene van Niekerk, Judge Frederick Brand, Dr Marlene le Roux, Nicky Newton-King, and Prof John Volmink were honoured for their significant contributions to society in the areas of law, the performing arts, literature, business and education. They received their degrees at a small physical ceremony for doctoral graduates from the Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences, Education, Theology and Law held at the Endler Hall in the Konservatorium on the Stellenbosch campus.
​Prof Marlene van Niekerk
Prof Marlene van Niekerk received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil), honoris causa, for her immense impact on the Afrikaans literature and global literary landscape; for her unique contribution to the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch at SU's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences; for her commitment to the development of a new generation of writers; and for her generosity in sharing her knowledge through the academic discipline.
In her acceptance speech, Van Niekerk expressed her gratitude to SU for a special and coveted award. She said creative writing is a form of research and can offer material that is complex enough to stimulate ordinary literary research in the long term. “One hopes that creative writing will survive as a skill, as a craft that one first has to master before you can improvise and renew freely."
One also hopes that the outcomes of creative writing as offered by Stellenbosch University will fearlessly undermine every prevailing form of hegemonical thinking through irony, ambiguity and by adding a strangeness to everyday language and perceptions."
Van Niekerk has had an immense impact on the Afrikaans literature and literary landscape, not only through her own writings, but also through educating well-known authors and winners of literary awards.
An extremely productive author, Van Niekerk has garnered 20 local and international awards and prizes. In 2011, she received the National Order of Ikhamanga (silver) in recognition of her outstanding intellectual contribution to the field of literary arts and culture through poetry, literature and philosophical works.
Apart from the literary value of her work, it has also contributed significantly to research. Her oeuvre has been the subject of six doctorates, more than 25 master's theses and over 60 scholarly articles.
Van Niekerk, who retired from SU's Department of Afrikaans and Dutch in 2019 as a distinguished professor, developed the successful MA programme in Creative Writing. Many students who completed the programme have proceeded to become established authors and have won a range of literary awards, including Hertzog prizes.
In addition to graduates from the formal writing programme, Van Niekerk also mentored a range of other scholars and authors, including several award winners, and served as supervisor for students of Afrikaans and Dutch, literary translation and biographical writing.