Background
Andrew Henry Martin Scholtz was born on 28 July 1923 in Kimberley, South Africa. His mother was a "house mother", as he would put it and his father a sailmaker. However, he had to leave school and work as a carpenter with his uncle in order support his family after his father broke his hip and became bedridden.
His mother got him the job.
Career
Early life and education
Scholtz was the eldest of ten children. Scholtz passed standard 5 (Grade 7) at Beaconsfield Coloured School in Kimberley. Poverty compelled him to join the army in October 1940.
He had to present himself as being 21 although he was only 17.
lieutenant was a requirement for joining the Cape Corps that he have a driver"s license. He however did not have one thus joining the artillery entity instead.
Here he was accepted as a white and conceded to this, as he puts it, "to feed his family not to be accepted as a white man". This experience had a lasting impact on him: being a soldier in a whites only battalion, he carried this secret for five years.
Then he returned after having served in Kenya, Ethiopia and Egypt, alas, too late for his father had passed on.
He had spent twenty months in the North of Italy as a prisoner of war before he escaped. He worked for a while in Swaziland and Botswana, using the trade taught to him earlier in his life and settled as a building contractor in Mafikeng, South Africa (then Bophuthatswana). In 1995 Andrew Henry Martin Scholtz debuted, at the age of 75, with his novel Vatmaar.
He worked on the story for a period of three years before sending it to David Phillip Publishers in Cape Town, who then forwarded it to Kwela Books (Afrikaans Publishing Company) as the story did not translate so well.
Kwela Books was a newly established company with the goal of finding new talent. Annarie van der Merwe of Kwela Books dediced that it was an Afrikaans story so it should be published in Afrikaans.
Scholtz wrote two more books while waiting for the publication of Vatmaar, which were published later: Langsaan die vuur: vyf lewensverhale (1996) en Afdraai: ’n kroniek van seermaak en seerkry(1998). Death and afterward
On 17 November 2004 Andrew Henry Martin Scholtz died from acute asthma after spending the last two months being blind as well.
Yet, he will always be remembered for Vatmaar.