Mark Behr

1963 - 2015

Author of novels, short stories and essays
Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Rhodes College, Memphis, TN

Mark Behr was born on 19 Oktober 1963 at the farm Mbuyu in Tanzania, formerly Tanganyika. With the nationalisation of white-owned farms in East Africa, the Behr family emigrated to South Africa. Mark attended the Drakensberg Boy's Choir Music School and studied at the University of Stellenbosch. He continued his studies in Norway and the United States. He holds Masters degrees in English Literature, International Peace Studies and Fiction Writing from the university of Notre Dame, USA.
The Smell of Apples, taught in universities around the world, has been translated and published in nine languages, including Hebrew, Chinese, German and Portuguese. Behr's work so far has been primarily concerned with issues of race, gender and militarization within contemporary authoritarian cultures.
A former Research Fellow at the International Peace Research Institute of Oslo in Norway, Behr has also taught English and International Peace Studies at universities in Africa, Europe and the United States. He has been Professor of World Literature and Fiction Writing at the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico, USA and also taught annually in the MA program at UCT, South Africa, as well as in the MFA program at the University of New Mexico. In 1990 he confessed he had been a spy for the South Africa's police. From the mid-90's Mark was professor of Creative Writing at Rhodes College, Memphis, TN in the USA.
Hobbies: In July 2005, Mark ran in the Comrades Marathon (Durban - Pietermaritzburg) in South Africa.
The Smell of Apples was adapted for the screen for release in the UK in 2011.

Mark Behr died on 27 November 2015 in Johannesburg.

Met die volgehoue ironisiering is Die reuk van appels op die "wysie" van 'n kindervertelling 'n genadelose afrekening met die apartheidsera. ... En anders as so baie romans van díe aard "wys" Behr se struktuur nie en word ons as lesers nie bewus van 'n manipulasie nie. In laaste instansie is dit die ligte aanslag wat in hierdie boek so bevredigend is.
John Kannemeyer

Paton, Gordimer, Coetzee, Breytenbach, Brink are all on our shelves. But there are other, younger voices now, clamouring to be heard. Mark Behr is one, and The Smell of Apples, his first novel, is as deftly-spun as it is disconcerting.
Tunku Varadarajan, The Times of London

Through Marnus, the 11-year-old narrator of this masterful first novel, The Smell of Apples, the South African writer Mark Behr has created a portrait of Afrikaner society as vivid and as powerful as it is chilling.
Claire Messud, Washington Post

The Smell of Apples is a knock-out novel from beginning to end.
Fiona Luis, The Boston Globe

Embrace is a powerful, complex and disturbing work.
John Woods, The Spectator

Seen through the prism of the adult's memory and language, Embrace is a highly impressive novel. Behr's writing has an allusive, cinematic quality.
Ken Wiwa, The Globe and Mail"

Kings of the Water:
Superbly written, thoughtful and unflinching, this terrific novel explores the mentality of the Afrikaner male - with wonderfully poetic use of the Afrikaans language.
The Times of London

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