Akademie: Award not a bid to undermine censors (Weekend Argus, 1979-05-05)

Vanuit Digitale Etienne Leroux Projek

JOHANNESBURG - The SA Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns denied this week that it tried to undermine the Government's publications control machinery by awarding the Hertzog Prize to Etienne Leroux's banned work, Magersfontein, O Magersfontein!

The chairman of the akademie, professor A P Grove, said the akademie, in awarding the prize, had done what it had always sought to do: Recognise the best literary work of a specific period.

But Professor Grove has refused to reply directly to Dr Koot Vorster, former Moderator of the Ned Geref Kerk, who this week said only 'unbelievably naive' people would believe the award was not intended as a blow to the Government and the publications control machinery.

He refused to comment on Dr Vorster's proposal for a new prize for 'clean, noble and uplifting' Afrikaans literature.

Dr Grove said the publications machinery operated in terms of a certain law while the akademie functioned under a completely different provision in the awarding of the prize.

It was this not as paradoxical as it sounded for the same book to be banned and awarded the akademie's prize.