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Liesl Jobson

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Liesl Jobson
Born
Durban, South Africa
EducationUniversity of the Witwatersrand (BMus, MA)
Notable work100 Papers (2008)
Ride the Tortoise (2013)
Children2
WebsiteOfficial website (2016 archive)

Liesl Jobson is a South African poet and short story and flash fiction writer.[1] Her works center on identity, trauma, abuse, shame and motherhood, among other themes.[2][3][4] She is primarily published in journals, magazines and short story anthologies,[5] but has also published six books, including three children's books as part of Book Dash.[6][1][7]

Biography

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Jobson was born in Durban, South Africa.[7] In her childhood, she lived in Pinetown and Cape Town before her family relocated to New Canaan, Connecticut for 18 months before returning to Cape Town. While at New Canaan High School, she played flute in orchestra and was inspired for the first time to become a writer.[8][9] She has a BMus and a Master of Arts in writing from the University of the Witwatersrand. By the time she started her Master's in the early 2000s, she had already published more than 60 of her stories and poems online. One of her professors suggested she anthologise them and submit the result as her dissertation. This later became 100 Papers, which she published through Botsotso Publishing in 2008.[7][9][10] Her next book, a collection of poetry called View From An Escalator, was published in 2008 with a grant from the Centre for the Book.[3] Her early jobs included a community journalist and a media officer and speechwriter. She has also taught music at schools such as Roedean School and Sacred Heart College.[9][8]

Jobson placed first in the inaugural Inglis House Poetry Contest in 2003[11][12][8] and, in 2006, her anthology 100 Papers won the Ernst van Heerden Creative Writing Award from the University of the Witwatersrand.[7][12] Jobson was a poetry editor for Mad Hatters' Review in 2005[8] and was a senior correspondent and deputy editor for BOOK SA around 2009.[13][7] She was also a contributing editor to BooksLIVE around 2013 and headed the South African arm of Poetry International for many years.[14][13][9] She also teaches poetry at South African Writers College.[7] Her writing has been printed in a number of magazines and journals, including Aesthetica, Moondance, New Coin, Quick Fiction, The Southern Review, Chimurenga, Word Riot and The Common.[8][13][6][9] She was a judge in the Short Sharp Stories competition for PEN South Africa in 2017.[15]

Jobson's protagonists are mainly women, and themes present throughout her works include identity, trauma, women's sexuality, abuse, motherhood, divorce and friendship.[2][3][16][5][1] Erinn Kelley of Literary Mama described her characters as "unwaveringly honest and relatable"[2] and Jane Rosenthal of Mail & Guardian described her stories as "occupy[ing] a narrow, intense zone of personal relationships and personal sense of identity."[5] Her 2013 publication Ride the Tortoise explored "the intersections between shame, bodies and women's physical vulnerability in the context of a society that is structured according to unequal gender relations."[4] Michael Northen of Wordgathering praised her "portrayal of women under mental duress [as] a significant contribution to the growing field of disability literature."[1]

Personal life

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Jobson married at 19 and later divorced.[17][10][9] She has two children, a son and a daughter, from the marriage.[17][9] She has since remarried.[8]

Jobson is a bassoonist and has played with many orchestras, including the SABC Symphony Orchestra and the Bophuthatswana Chamber Orchestra, and played flute in the Soweto Police Band for two years.[7][9][8] In 1991, she competed for the SABC Music Prize. She stopped playing for several years after her son's birth while suffering from postpartum depression.[8]

Awards

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Ride the Tortoise was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award in 2013.[9]

Publications

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Wikisource has original works by or about:
Liesl Jobson
  • 2008: 100 papers (flash fiction) - Botsotso Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9814068-1-7
  • 2008: View from an Escalator (poetry) - Botsotso Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9814068-3-1
  • 2013: Ride the Tortoise (short stories) - Jacana Literary Foundation. ISBN 978-1-4314056-6-4
  • 2014: A Fish and a Gift (children's book) - Book Dash. With Jesse Breytenbach and Andy Thesen. ISBN 978-0-9922357-8-9
  • 2014: Together We're Strong: The Story of Albertina Sisulu (children's book) - Book Dash. With Alice Toich and Nazli Jacobs. ISBN 978-0-9922358-8-8
  • 2015: Karabo's Question (children's book) - Book Dash. With Natalie Edwards and Marike Beyleveld. ISBN 978-1-928318-33-0

Selected anthologies

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Northen, Michael. "Book Review: Ride the Tortoise (Liesl Jobson)". Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature (26). Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  2. ^ a b c Kelley, Erinn (July 2013). "Everyday Redemption: A Review of Ride the Tortoise". Literary Mama. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  3. ^ a b c Warren, Crystal (2009). "South Africa". The Journal of Commonwealth Literature. 44 (4): 189. doi:10.1177/0021989409350203. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  4. ^ a b Murray, Jessica (2014). ""It left shame in me, lodged in my body": Representations of shame, gender, and female bodies in selected contemporary South African short stories". Journal of Commonwealth Literature. 50 (2): 221–222. doi:10.1177/0021989414538868.
  5. ^ a b c Rosenthal, Jane (17 May 2013). "The joy of Jobson' glorious versatility". Mail & Guardian. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  6. ^ a b c "Liesl Jobson". Franschhoek Literary Festival. 2025. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Liesl Jobson". African Books Collective. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Liesl Jobson - listening and writing". Interviewed by McGrane, Michelle. LitNet. 24 October 2005. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Writing nurtured in a promised land". BD Live News. 15 April 2013. Retrieved 20 May 2025 – via University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
  10. ^ a b "Smoking With Liesl Jobson (interview)". SmokeLong Quarterly. 15 October 2004. Archived from the original on 22 June 2006.
  11. ^ a b Northen, Michael. "The Inglis House Poetry Contest: One of a Kind". Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature (35). Retrieved 21 May 2025.
  12. ^ a b c d e f "Liesl Jobson". Open Book Festival. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  13. ^ a b c d e "Talking authors: Liesl Jobson". Mail & Guardian. 8 December 2009. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  14. ^ "Editors (South Africa)". Poetry International. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  15. ^ "Short Sharp Stories 2017 Shortlist Announced". PEN South Africa. 3 May 2017. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  16. ^ "100 PAPERS by Liesl Jobson Reviewed by Lalo Fox" in Mad Hatters' Review, Issue 10, Fall 2008
  17. ^ a b "Smoking With Liesl Jobson (interview)". SmokeLong Quarterly. 15 June 2004. Archived from the original on 16 May 2006.
  18. ^ Sole, Kelwyn (1 June 2004). "Timbila 2004 : A Journal of Onion Skin Poetry". New Coin Poetry. 40 (1): 79. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  19. ^ "Book Review". Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature (8). Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  20. ^ "Book review – Home Away". Getaway. 26 October 2011. Retrieved 21 May 2025.
  21. ^ Meihuizen, Nicholas (2013). "From mimetic punctiliousness to imaginative free play". Literator. 34 (1): 382. doi:10.4102/lit.v34i1.382. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  22. ^ Saul, Denise (2018). "Review of The Right Way To Be Crippled & Naked: The Fiction of Disability by Sheila Black, Michael Northen, and Annabelle Hayse, Eds. (2017)". Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. 7 (2): 204–208. doi:10.15353/cjds.v7i2.432. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
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