Cicely van Straten

Cicely Anne van Straten, née Luck, was born at Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape. When she was five years old her parents moved to London, UK, where they lived for two years before the family settled in Kampala, Uganda. Her formative years were spent mostly in Kenya where her grandparents were farmers, and in Uganda where her father was connected with Makerere University. After a short sojourn in Guilford, UK, they settled in South Africa again in 1967.

She attended Turi Primary School in Kenya, did A-levels at Highlands School in Kampala and studied at Guilford Tech before she enrolled with the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. She received her BA (Honours) in English in 1969 from this University. In 1996 she received her Masters from the University in Pretoria with a dissertation titled "The Fairy tale as paradigm of inner transformation: a comparative study of European and Southern African tales". She taught as a guest lecturer at the Johannesburg College for Education in 1970 and in 1992 at the University of Pretoria.Her family’s African roots as well her randfather’s anthropological researches in Kenya in the 1920’s have given her a fascination with African folklore and  mythology which is mirrored in her writing and her research.

Her master’s dissertation is concerned with the rich folkloric culture of South Africa which has been lost to many of white children during a period of rapid cultural change.

A sense of loss, having to leave East Africa, and a realization that disappearing values needed to be captured and shared, prompted her to start writing for children. She had desire to celebrate the beauty of Old Africa for the children of today and to bring them insight into the lives of other children who share their world. This has been reflected in her writing for children for the last 25 years.

She had always wanted to create for the children of Africa a fantasy literature set in the African landscape with an African archetypical language. 

From a young age she was absorbed by fantasy writing and acknowledges a debt to the works of the Grimm Brothers, Andrew Lang, George MacDonald, CS Lewis, Tolkien, Roger Lancelyn Green, Padraic Colum and Rosemary Sutcliffe amongst others. She admires these people because they succeeded in making our ancient mythic heritage accessible to modern young people in a fitting and beautiful form. She would like to see fantasy literature that is truly African in its selling emerge for the children of Africa. Asked about other influences on her work, Cicely answered "Beliefs that inspire my writing, simply put, are that we must learn to love others, (including those we naturally fear or hate) and the whole living realm of our planet, with the love we have ourselves."

As other South African authors, Cicely is concerned about the very small readership in the country. A big concern (and the reason why she decided on the particular topic for her masters thesis is that the tales of Africa should be appreciated, understood and validated, especially in an educational setting with an emphasis on their emotional and spriritual value for the children of Africa.

Cicely's hobbies are music, gardening, hiking, nature and the environment. She fact that she spent a large part of her formative years in East Africa may be the reason that the outdoors and nature is such an important part in her life and integrated in her writing.

Cicely has been a active member of the Children's Book Forum in Pretoria since its establishment and committee member for many terms, some of them as chairperson.