Jack Cope
Robert Knox ″Jack″ Cope (3 June 1913 – 1 May 1991) was a South African novelist, short story writer, poet and editor.
Life
Jack Cope was born in
For many years, Cope was sympathetic to
He married his second cousin, the artist Lesley De Villiers in 1942. They separated in 1958 and were divorced in the early 1960s. They had two sons, Raymond, (1948–1977) and Michael (born 1952).
Jack Cope is well known for his
Fiction
Cope published eight
Cope's first novel, The Fair House (1955), considers the
However, it is as a short-story writer that Cope demonstrated his finest talent. His stories evoke, according to Alan Paton, 'with a few words the scents and sounds and colours of our country'. In A Crack in the Sky (The Tame Ox, 1960) and 'Power' (The Man Who Doubted and Other Stories, 1967) his moral vision is clear; his third collection, Alley Cat and Other Stories (1973), contains darker themes such as those of alienation and loneliness. Among Cope's main achievements was his influence on South African literature during the 1960s and 1970s, important years in the struggle against apartheid.
In popular culture
The 2011 film Black Butterflies tells the story of the relationship between Ingrid Jonker and Jack Cope, who is portrayed onscreen by Irish actor Liam Cunningham.
Selected bibliography
- Marie: A South African Satire (1948)
- The Golden Oriole (1958)
- The Road To Ysterberg: A Novel (1959)
- The Penguin Book Of South African Verse (Co- editor) (1968)
- The Dawn Comes Twice (1969)
- The Rain-Maker (1971)
- The Africa We Knew (1973)
- Lacking A Label (1974)
- My Son Max (1977)
- Notes Recorded in Sun (1979)
- The Adversary Within: Dissident Writers In Afrikaans (1982)