Zuretha, née Coetzer, also wrote a book under the pseudonym Nadia Naudé.
Zuretha Roos was born and raised in De Doorns in the Hex River Valley on 21 September 1941. She attended Hex Valley High School and remembers most that school "bored her silly". She loved sports and athletics and enjoyed her finest moments playing netball for the school's
first team in Stds. 9 and 10.
At Stellenbosch University she led an active social life and studied
languages and psychology "on the side". The wide choice of
careers open to women today, were not available, so she obtained the obligatory
Teacher's Diploma after gaining a BA.
Social activities paid off because she met the man who was to become her
husband, Gideon Roos.
Following an 18-month stint as a reluctant teacher at a Cape Town school
Zuretha moved to Johannesburg where the love of her life was studying and
working. She entered journalism by a roundabout route, married and had two sons
in
quick succession.
The tragic loss of their elder son, in a freak accident,
just before his tenth birthday changed her lives in
many ways.
She pursued an Honours degree in Afrikaans through UNISA and at the same time
became
a lecturer in Afrikaans at the Johannesburg College of Education. In
the early nineties she started on her first Mina book, which was published in
1995.
Zuretha and Gideon now live on the sea, in a small coastal village, and also
have a small farm
where they breed cattle, keep chickens, and grow organic vegetables.
Hobbies: Reading, cooking (sometimes)
Favourite books: Metaphysics. John Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger and most of Graham
Greene. Bill
Bryson's wonderfully funny travel books. Paul Theroux's wonderfully world-weary
travel books. Lately I've loved Joanne Harris (of "Chocolat" fame). Have a
weakness for the better thrillers of Steven King and James Herbert. Pet hates:
crime novels and anything described as "zany".
Rather try and fail, than never try at all. At the end of life we will always regret the things we wanted to do but never attempted, because we feared failure.
Zuretha
www.StellenboschWriters.com © Rosemarie Breuer