Jenny Robson

Jennifer Marion Robson (née Murray) was born in Cape Town and raised in the Mother City. She matriculated at Westerford in Cape Town in 1970 and studied primary school teaching at the training college in Mowbray. She obtained her teachers diploma in music and then studied through the University of South Africa where she obtained the BA (Philosophy) degree. After teaching in Simonstown for two years, she left to take up a music teaching post in Botswana. There she met and married Matt Robson, an Englishman from Durham, UK. In 1987 they moved to the UK, but returned to Botswana three years later. Being in Botswana in a non-racist society has given Robson the chance to work through her own
prejudices and come to some semblance of understanding and a small circle of peace. She says that living in the United Kingdom for a year made her love Africa with passion and a wider perception. Jenny loves writing for children, she says their spontaneity and lack of hypocrisy delights her constantly. Her favourite theme in books is the "utter uniqueness of the individual".She hates any form of stereo-typing, and sees individuals as a "never-to-be-repeated entity". To her each person is the centre of his/her universe and without that person the universe doesn't exist. Every person she claims is an amazing combination of inner life and external environment.
Jenny develops her ideas for children's books by getting an image or a situation that fascinates her and trying to work out what it is that fascinates her about it. Then she lives with the images constantly in her mind until they become a coherent plot. After that she writes the first draft, followed by a second and a third until she is happy with the end result. Her literary influences include : Ayn Rand's Atlas shrugged, which, she claims, blew her mind at sixteen; Doris Lesing's The grass is singing; any and all books on the Holocaust; the poetry of Dylan Thomas and the Bible. Longing for answers while almost certain there aren't any is an influence on her work, as is contempt for political correctness vs. understanding of why it arises, a constant inner struggle between a belief in the brotherhood of
man and daily news reports also influence her work, as do agonising over capitalism vs. socialism and over the desperate longing for a God vs. the logic of atheism. She believes that political correctness and the feeling that any worthwhile novel should face and support the "rainbow nation" ideology is something that pervades our daily lives and yet is a problem facing writers of children's books in South Africa. She wonders if we are losing our honesty in our (honest) longing. Another problem facing authors of children's books in South Africa is the fact that they need to understand exactly what excites, moves and overwhelms children, and find a way to give it to them before writers' lose the battle against "hands-on" computer games altogether.

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Jenny believes that a children's book "must give a sense of hope, of some faith in the future, some belief in some basic goodness". Children's books according to her must "happen", it's no use describing beautiful sunsets to children, it is not what they want. She says: "You only get one shot to grip a child's imagination".

She won several awards for her children’s books. She is the first author to achieve a fourth consecutive win in the Sanlam Youth Novel Competition for: Don't Panic, Mechanic (1994), One Magic Moment (1996), The Denials of Kow-Ten (1998) and Because Pula Means Rain (2000). She considers Don't panic, mechanic" to be her most successful book because she says "It has honesty, even when the truth isn't palatable".

Other awards for her work include the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award in 1992. Don't Panic, Mechanic also received honourable mention in the 1995 Noma Awards, and the German translation of this book was listed as one of the seven best children's books in Germany for July 1996. It also won the Blue Cobra Award in Switzerland (1995). She also won the MER Award (1997), and the Engen/Kwela/NNTV (1996) - silver.She currently teaches music (marimbas and steel drums) in Orapa, a diamond-mining town on the edge of the Kalahari, in Botswana. She and husband Matt have two sons, Stof and Doug. Jenny is a member of Mensa.and her hobbies include music, reading non-fiction and biography, biltong-making and "being an unsociable hermit".

Books published by Jenny Robson:

1993: Winner's magic. Heinemann Jaws (ESL) Keswahili

1993: Podi the bad goat. Longman Gems. (ESL)

1994: Willi the weaver bird. Longman Gems. (ESL)

1994: Four kilometres isn't far. Longman Gems. (ESL-rhyme)

1994: Mellow yellow. Cape Town: Tafelberg. (novel)

1994: Don't panic, mechanic. Cape Town: Tafelberg. (novel) Translated inro German

1995: The bright lights. Heinemann Jaws. (ESL)

1995: Nobody's perfect. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau. (children's) Translated into Afrikaans

1996: Towels for the twins. Longman Gems. (ESL-rhyme)

1996: The warthog war. Longman Gems. (ESL-rhyme)

1996: Where shadows fall. Cape Town: Kwela. (Young adult)

1996: One magic moment. Cape Town: Tafelberg. (Teenage novel)

1998: The denials of Kow-Ten. Cape Town: Tafelberg (Teenage novel)

2000: Because pula means rain. Cape Town: Tafelberg. (Teenage novel)

Since 1992 Jenny has also written short stories for You, Drum, Tribute and Essentials magazines. She has also made contributions to Wordwise (1995) Shuter & Shooter (ESL). She also published an adult novel, Them (African Press)

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