Sir Laurens Jan van der Post,CBE (13 December 1906 – 15 December 1996)^[1][2] was a South AfricanAfrikaner writer, farmer, soldier, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer andconservationist. He was noted for his interest inJungianism and theKalahari Bushmen, his experiences duringWorld War II, as well as his relationships with notable figures such as KingCharles III and British Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher. After his death, there was controversy over claims that he had exaggerated many aspects of his life, as well as his sexual abuse and impregnation of a 14-year-old girl.^[3]

Sir Laurens van der Post CBE
Born	Laurens Jan van der Post (1906-12-13)13 December 1906 Philippolis,Orange River Colony
Died	15 December 1996(1996-12-15) (aged 90) London, England
Resting place	Philippolis, Free State, South Africa
Education	Grey College,Bloemfontein
Spouse(s)	Marjorie Edith Wendt (1928–1949) Ingaret Giffard (1949–death)
Children	3
Parent(s)	Christiaan van der Post Lammie van der Post

Van der Post was born in the small town ofPhilippolis in theOrange River Colony, the post-Boer War British name for what had previously been the Afrikaner Orange Free State in what is today South Africa.^[4] His father, Christiaan Willem Hendrik van der Post (1856–1914), aHollander fromLeiden, had emigrated to South Africa with his parents and married Johanna Lubbe in 1889. The van der Posts had a total of 13 children, with Laurens being the 13th. The fifth son, Christiaan, was a lawyer and politician who fought in theSecond Boer War against the British. After the Second Boer War, Christiaan senior was exiled with his family toStellenbosch, where Laurens was conceived. They returned to Philippolis, in the Orange River Colony, where he was born in 1906.

He spent his early childhood years on the family farm, and acquired a taste for reading from his father's extensive library, which includedHomer andShakespeare. His father died in August 1914. In 1918, van der Post went to school atGrey College inBloemfontein. There, he wrote, it was a great shock to him that he was "being educated into something which destroyed the sense of common humanity I shared with the black people". In 1925, he took his first job as a reporter in training atThe Natal Advertiser inDurban, where his reporting included his own accomplishments playing on the Durban and Natalfield hockey teams. In 1926, he and two other rebellious writers,Roy Campbell andWilliam Plomer, published a satirical magazine calledVoorslag (whip lash) which criticised imperialist systems; it lasted for three issues before being forced to shut down because of its controversial views.^[5] Later that year he took off for three months with Plomer and sailed to Tokyo and back on a Japanese freighter, theCanada Maru, an experience which produced books by both authors later in life.

In 1927, van der Post met Marjorie Edith Wendt (d. 1995), daughter of the founder and conductor of theCape Town Orchestra. The couple traveled to England and on 8 March 1928, married atBridport, Dorset. A son was born on 26 December, named Jan Laurens (later known as John). In 1929, van der Post returned to South Africa to work for theCape Times, a newspaper inCape Town, where "For the time being Marjorie and I are living in the most dire poverty that exists," he wrote in his journal. He began to associate with bohemians and intellectuals who were opposed toJames Hertzog (Prime Minister) and thewhite South African policy. In an article entitled 'South Africa in the Melting Pot', which clarified his views of the South Africa racial problem, he said "Thewhite South African has never consciously believed that the native should ever become his equal." However, he predicted that "the process of leveling up and inter-mixture must accelerate continually ... the future civilization of South Africa is, I believe, neither black or white but brown."^{[citation needed]}

In 1931, van der Post returned to England. His friend, Plomer, had been published by theHogarth Press, a business run by the married coupleLeonard Woolf and the novelistVirginia Woolf. The Woolfs were members of the literary and artisticBloomsbury group, and through Plomer's introductions, van der Post also met figures such asArthur Waley,J. M. Keynes andE. M. Forster.^[6]

In 1934, the Woolfs published van der Post's first novel. CalledIn a Province, it portrayed the tragic consequences of a racially and ideologically divided South Africa. Later that year, he decided to become a dairy farmer and, possibly with the help of the independently wealthy poetLilian Bowes Lyon, bought Colley Farm, nearTetbury, Gloucestershire, with Lilian as his neighbor. There he divided his time between the needs of the cows and occasional visits to London, where he was a correspondent for South African newspapers. He considered this a directionless phase in his life which mirrored Europe's slow drift to war.^[6]

In 1936, he made five trips to South Africa and during one trip he met and fell in love withIngaret Giffard (1902–1997), an English actress and author four years his senior. In 1938 he sent his family back to South Africa. When theSecond World War began in 1939, he found himself torn between England and South Africa, his new love and his family; his career was at a dead end, and he was in depressed spirits, often drinking heavily.^[7]

In May 1940, van der Post volunteered for theBritish Army and upon completion of officer training in January 1941 he was sent to East Africa in theIntelligence Corps as acaptain. There he took up withGeneral Wingate'sGideon Force which was given the task of restoring the EmperorHaile Selassie to his throne inAbyssinia. His unit led 11,000 camels through difficult mountain terrain and he was remembered for being an excellent caretaker of the animals. In March, he came down withmalaria and was sent toPalestine to recover.^[6]

In early 1942, asJapanese forcesinvaded South East Asia, van der Post was transferred toAllied forces in theDutch East Indies (Indonesia), because of hisDutch language skills. By his own statement, he was given command of Special Mission 43, the purpose of which was to organise the covert evacuation of as many Allied personnel as possible, after thesurrender of Java.^[6]

On 20 April 1942, he surrendered to the Japanese. He was taken to prison camps first atSukabumi and then toBandung. Van der Post was known for his work in maintaining the morale of prisoners of many different nationalities. Along with others, he organised a "camp university" with courses from basic literacy to degree-standard ancient history, and he also organized a camp farm to supplement nutritional needs. He could speak some basic Japanese, which helped him greatly. Once, depressed, he wrote in his diary: "It is one of the hardest things in this prison life: the strain caused by being continually in the power of people who are only half-sane and live in a twilight of reason and humanity." He wrote about his prison experiences inA Bar of Shadow (1954),The Seed and the Sower (1963) andThe Night of the New Moon (1970). Japanese film directorNagisa Ōshima based his filmMerry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1982) onThe Seed and the Sower.^[8]

Following thesurrender of Japan, while his fellow POWs were repatriated, van der Post chose to remain in Java, and on 15 September 1945, he joined AdmiralWilfrid Patterson onHMS Cumberland for the official surrender of the Japanese in Java to British forces representing the Allies.

Van der Post then spent two years helping to mediate between Indonesian nationalists and members of the Dutch Colonial Government. He had gained the trust of the nationalist leaders such asMohammad Hatta andSukarno and warned both British Prime MinisterClement Attlee and the AlliedSupreme Commander in South East Asia, Admiral LordLouis Mountbatten, whom he met in London in October 1945, that the country was on the verge of blowing up. Van der Post travelled toThe Hague to repeat his warning directly to the Dutch cabinet. In November 1946, British forces withdrew and van der Post became military attaché to the British consulate inBatavia. By 1947, after he had returned to England, theIndonesian Revolution had begun. That same year, van der Post retired from the army and was made aCBE. The events of these early post-war years in Java are examined in his memoirThe Admiral's Baby (1996).

With the war over and his business with the army concluded, van der Post returned to South Africa in late 1947 to work at theNatal Daily News, but with the election of theNational Party and the onset ofapartheid he traveled back to London. He later published a critique of apartheid (The Dark Eye in Africa, 1955), basing many of his insights on his developing interest in psychology. In May 1949, he was commissioned by theColonial Development Corporation (CDC) to "assess the livestock capacities of the uninhabitedNyika andMulanje plateaux ofNyasaland" (now part ofMalawi). Around this time he divorced Marjorie, and on 13 October 1949, married Ingaret Giffard.

He went on honeymoon with Ingaret to Switzerland, where his new wife introduced him toCarl Jung. Jung was to have probably a greater influence on him than anybody else, and he later said that he had never met anyone of Jung's stature. He continued to work on a travel book about his Nyasaland adventures calledVenture to the Interior, which became an immediate best-seller in the US and Europe upon its publication in 1952.^[6]

In 1950,Lord Reith (head of the CDC) asked van der Post to head an expedition toBechuanaland (now Botswana), to see the potential of the remoteKalahari Desert forcattle ranching. There van der Post for the first time met thehunter-gatherer people known as the Bushmen orSan people. He repeated the journey to the Kalahari in 1952. In 1953, he published his third book,The Face Beside the Fire, a semi-autobiographical novel about a psychologically "lost" artist in search of his soul and soul-mate, which clearly shows Jung's influence on his thinking and writing.

Flamingo Feather (1955) was ananti-communist novel in the guise of aBuchanesque adventure story, about a Soviet plot to take over South Africa. It sold very well.Alfred Hitchcock planned to film the book, but lost support from South African authorities and gave up the idea.Penguin Books keptFlamingo Feather in print until thecollapse of the Soviet Union.

In 1955, theBBC commissioned van der Post to return to the Kalahari in search of the Bushmen, a journey that became a six-part television documentary series in 1956. In 1958, his best-known book was published under the same title as the BBC series:The Lost World of the Kalahari. He followed this in 1961 byThe Heart of the Hunter, derived fromSpecimens of Bushman Folklore (1910), collected byWilhelm Bleek andLucy Lloyd, andMantis and His Hunter, collected byDorothea Bleek.^[9]

Van der Post described the Bushmen as the original natives of southern Africa, outcast and persecuted by all other races and nationalities. He said they represented the "lost soul" of all mankind, a type ofnoble savage myth. This mythos of the Bushmen inspired the colonial government to create theCentral Kalahari Game Reserve in 1961 to guarantee their survival, and the reserve became a part of settled law whenBotswana was created in 1966.

Van der Post had become a respected television personality, had introduced the world to theKalahariBushmen, and was considered an authority on Bushman folklore and culture. "I was compelled towards the Bushmen," he said, "like someone who walks in his sleep, obedient to a dream of finding in the dark what the day has denied him." Over the next fifteen years, he had a steady stream of publications, including the two books drawn from his war experiences (see above), a travel book calledA Journey into Russia (1964) describing a long trip through theSoviet Union, and two novels of adventure set on the fringes of the Kalahari desert,A Story Like the Wind (1972) and its sequelA Far-Off Place (1974). The latter books, about four young people, two of them San, caught up in violent events on the borders of 1970s Rhodesia, became popular as class readers in secondary schools. In 1972, there was a BBC television series about his 12-year friendship with Jung, who died in 1961, which was followed by the bookJung and the Story of Our Time (1976).

Ingaret and he moved toAldeburgh, Suffolk, where they became involved with a circle of friends that included an introduction to then-Prince Charles, whom he then took on asafari toKenya in 1977 and with whom he had a close and influential friendship for the rest of his life. Also in 1977, together withIan Player, a South African conservationist, he created the firstWorld Wilderness Congress inJohannesburg. In 1979, hisChelsea neighborMargaret Thatcher became prime minister, and she called on his advice with matters dealing with southern Africa, particularly theRhodesia settlement of 1979–80. In 1981, he was given aKnighthood. He was made godfather toPrince William.^[10]

In 1982, he fell and injured his back and used the hiatus from tennis and skiing to write an autobiography calledYet Being Someone Other (1982), which discussed his love of the sea and his journey to Japan with Plomer in 1926. (His affection for that country and its people, despite his wartime experiences, had first been explored in 1968 in his bookPortrait of Japan.) By now, Ingaret was slipping intosenility, and he spent much time with the sculptor Frances Baruch, an old friend (who made a bust of van der Post). In 1984, his son John (who had gone on to be an engineer in London) died, and van der Post spent time with his youngest daughter Lucia and her family.^[6]

In old age, Sir Laurens van der Post was involved with many projects, from the worldwide conservationist movement, to setting up a centre of Jungian studies in Cape Town.A Walk with a White Bushman (1986), the transcript of a series of interviews, gives a taste of his appeal as a conversationalist. In 1996, he tried to prevent the eviction of the Bushmen from their homeland in theCentral Kalahari Game Reserve, which had been set up for that purpose, but ironically it was his work in the 1950s to promote the land for cattle ranching that led to their eventual removal. In October 1996, he publishedThe Admiral's Baby, describing the events in Java at the end of the war. His 90th birthday celebration was spread over five days inColorado, with a "this is your life"-type event with friends from every period of his life. A few days later, on 15 December 1996, after whispering in Afrikaans "die sterre" (the stars), he died. The funeral took place on 20 December in London, attended by Zulu chiefMangosuthu Buthelezi, Prince Charles, Margaret Thatcher, and many friends and family.^[11] His ashes were buried in a special memorial garden at Philippolis on 4 April 1998. Ingaret died five months after him on 5 May 1997.

Laurens van de Post Way, built on the formerJoint Services School of Intelligence site inAshford, Kent, is named after him.

After van der Post's death a number of writers questioned the accuracy of his claims about his life.^[12] His reputation as a "modern sage" and "guru" was questioned, and journalists published examples of embellishment of the truth in his memoirs and travel books.^[12] J. D. F. Jones, in his authorised biographyStoryteller: The Lives of Laurens van der Post (2001), claimed that van der Post was "a fraud, a fantasist, a liar, a serial adulterer and a paternalist. He falsified his Army record and inflated his own importance at every possible opportunity."^[11][13][14] A rebuttal was published byChristopher Booker (van der Post'sODNB biographer and friend) inThe Spectator.^[15]

While conducting research for van der Post's biography with the permission of his daughter Lucia, Jones found documents confirming that van der Post in 1953 had fathered a daughter with a 14-year-old girl named Bonnie (actress and dancerEvadne Baker), who had been entrusted to his care by her parents for a sea voyage between South Africa and England. Van der Post never acknowledged the existence of the child, nor his relationship to her, but did pay Bonnie a yearly stipend. The child, Cari Mostert, publicly came out to support Jones's biographical account in 1996, after Van Der Post's death.^[11][13][3]

For a complete list see External links.

• In a Province; novel (1934; reprinted 1953).
• Venture to the Interior; travel (1952).
• The Face Beside the Fire; novel (1953).
• A Bar of Shadow; novella (1954).
• Flamingo Feather; novel (1955).
• The Dark Eye in Africa; politics, psychology (1955).
• The Lost World of the Kalahari; travel (1958) [BBC 6-part TV series, 1956].
• The Heart of the Hunter; travel, folklore (1961).
• The Seed and the Sower; three novellas (1963).
• A Journey into Russia (US title:A View of All the Russias); travel (1964).
• A Portrait of Japan; travel (1968).
• The Night of the New Moon (US title:The Prisoner and the Bomb); wartime memoirs (1970).
• A Story Like the Wind; novel (1972).
• A Far-Off Place; novel, sequel to the above (1974).
• Jung and the Story of Our Time; psychology, memoir (1975).
• Yet Being Someone Other; memoir, travel (1982).
• A Walk with A White Bushman; interview-transcripts (1986).
• The Admiral's Baby; memoir (1996).

Film adaptations of his books.

• Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)—based onThe Seed and the Sower (1963) andThe Night of the New Moon (1970), about his experience as a prisoner of war.^[8] It was directed byNagisa Ōshima and starredDavid Bowie.
• A Far Off Place (1993)—based onA Far-Off Place (1974) andA Story Like the Wind (1972).

• Carpenter, Frederic I. (1969).Laurens Van Der Post. New York:Twayne Publishers.

• Complete published works by or about LvdP
• Laurens van der Post atIMDb
• Images of LvdP, from theNational Portrait Gallery.