Alfred Schaffer

Poet

Alfred Schaffer grew up in The Hague, the son of a Limburger and an Aruban. In 1996, he moved to Cape Town, South Africa to continue his studies and met his future wife. He returned to the Netherlands in 2005 and worked as an editor in Dutch publishing before moving back to South Africa in 2011. He currently works as a lecturer at Stellenbosch University.

In 2014, Schaffer’s poetry collection, Mens Dier Ding (Man Animal Thing) was published and met with instant acclaim, going on to receive a VSB Poetry Prize nomination. ‘This book is a real happening in poetry… a masterpiece’, wrote the NRC Handelsblad. And in Trouw: ‘Schaffer shows what kind of animal things a man is capable of and how little human lives are sometimes worth. He does this with humour, with schwung, tenderly and thoughtfully; in poetry in which bloodlust can look like a ‘massive bar of dark chocolate’ . . . Man Animal Thing grabs you by the throat, not a common occurrence with poetry’.