Background
Visser was born on the farm Zaaifontein in the Fraserburg district of South Africa. An intense drought drove his parents from their farm in Carnarvon and he was born in a tent in the farmyard, under the shadow of a pear tree.
Visser was born on the farm Zaaifontein in the Fraserburg district of South Africa. An intense drought drove his parents from their farm in Carnarvon and he was born in a tent in the farmyard, under the shadow of a pear tree.
He attended school in Daljosafat at the same time as two other notable writers, Totius and Doctorate.F. Malherbe. He received teacher"s training at Normaal College in Cape Town, then studied medicine in Edinburgh, Scotland from 1901 to 1906.
He was popularly known as the "Singer of the Suikerbosrand". He worked as a doctor in Carnarvon (1907–1909), Steytlerville (1909–1916) and Heidelberg (1916–1929). He died on the 10th of June 1929.
Visser was already published at eighteen in Ons Kleintji.
His work is not regarded as part of the Eerste Taalbeweging, rather as the part of the poetry from the period until 1930. His verse is notably simple and musical, making use of traditional verse forms such as the rondeel, intertextual references and techniques such as the switching of idioms, epigrams and spellings.