Diana Ferrus: the South African poet whose words reclaimed history

South African poet, storyteller, publisher, editor and activist Diana Ferrus (1953-2026) received a provincial funeral when she passed on 30 January. Ferrus came to embody the resilience of women writing about identity and belonging in the face of colonial oppression and of apartheid (white minority rule) in her country. Barbara Boswell is an author and feminist literary scholar who researches black women writers in South Africa and has published a number of peer-reviewed articles on Ferrus’s poetry. We asked her to share her insights about her friend. Who was Diana Ferrus? Diana Ferrus was a writer and cultural icon who proudly identified as Khoi (a South African indigenous group) and a descendant of the enslaved. She was born in 1953 in South Africa, when apartheid had already been written into law. She grew up in a home with five siblings in Worcester in the Western Cape province. Ferrus enrolled at university in 1973, but protests would shut down classes. Because of financial constraints, she started working. She’d pick up her studies again in 1988 and, first working as an administrator at the University of the Western Cape, she obtained numerous degrees. Her Master’s thesis was on Black Afrikaans women writers. She’d written poetry from the age of 14 and would forge a reputation as a literary activist, storyteller, and mentor to many emerging black poets. She captured our collective imagination with her landmark poem I’ve Come to Take You Home. Its subject is the desecration of the body of Sarah Baartman, a Khoi who was paraded as a “freak” in colonial Britain and France in the 1800s.

After Baartman died in 1815 at the age of around 26, her body was dissected. Her skeleton, brain and genitals were displayed at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris until the 1970s. After that her remains were placed in a storeroom. Ferrus wrote a poem about Baartman’s dismembered body, still stored in that Paris museum, while she was a homesick exchange student in the Netherlands in 1998. The poem was later used as a powerful tool by activists fighting for these remains to be returned for a dignified burial to South Africa. Ferrus was also a daughter, a sister, and an aunt to many nieces and nephews who cherished her. She will be remembered as a cultural icon who changed history, instilled in our people a lost sense of pride and dignity in our heritage, and a person who loved and gave of herself unconditionally. How did her poem on Baartman make an impact beyond the page? I’ve Come to Take You Home is perhaps the only such work of literature written into law. It is part of a French bill which allowed for the remains of Sarah Baartman to be repatriated to South Africa in 2002 for burial. Ferrus was a member of the South African delegation who travelled with the remains from France. She performed the poem countless times, with every performance leaving people in awe, and often in tears.

Though it is her best-known poem, Ferrus penned many other poems on the subjects of gender-based violence, slavery and its aftermath in the Cape, her beloved father, and the disregarded and devalued cultures of Khoi and black Afrikaans-speaking people in South Africa. In 2022, she received an honorary doctorate from Stellenbosch University for using her writing and poetry to educate and empower, for displaying commitment to the development of a new generation of writers. What are the important things to know about her contributions? When Ferrus started writing, established publishers refused to publish her work. Not one to let obstacles like this stand in her way, she founded Diana Ferrus Uitgewers/Publishers, choosing to publish, market and sell her own work. She self-published three collections of poetry, Ons Komvandaan (2005), I’ve Come to Take You Home (2010) and Die Vrede Kom Later (2019). At one of her last public performances, in 2025, she declared: “Hulle het nog by die hek gestaan om my uit te hou, toe staan ek al op die dak!” (They were still standing at the gate to keep me out, when I was already standing on the roof!) Ons Komvandaan deals with her personal, cultural and political heritage – reflecting poignantly on her childhood in Worcester, her love for Afrikaans, and the family violence she was exposed to as a child. It also pays tribute to her cousin, John Marinus “Hennie” Ferrus, who was a freedom fighter, killed in 1981.

Die Vrede Kom Later is a sensitive, evocative poetic consideration of her father’s time in a prisoner-of-war camp in the second world war, and the shattered man who returned to his family. Ferrus grapples with his post-traumatic stress disorder, and its impact on family life. She also pays tribute to her mother, the backbone of the family. Another important poem written and performed by Ferrus was the bilingual My Naam is Februarie/My Name is February written from the point of view of an enslaved person. Februarie was held captive aboard a slave ship which sank off the coast in 1794, drowning about 300 enslaved Mozambicans shackled on board. The 150 survivors who swam to shore were recaptured and sold as slaves at the Cape. In this powerful poem, Ferrus surfaces the erased history of slavery and its brutality at the Cape, showing how descendants of February “reshaped this landscape/ my hands wove the patterns of these vineyards/ my feet pressed the grapes/ and I was paid in wine”.

She also co-edited a book on father-daughter relationships and published the children’s book The Boy Who Loved to Dance in 2025. It tells the story of Johaar Mosaval, a South African ballet dancer. She founded many writers’ organisations to promote black writers, women writers and the Afrikaans language. Among these were Die Mengelmoes Skrywers. She was a founder member of the Afrikaanse Skrywersvereniging, Bush Poets, Women in Xchains and WEAVE (Women’s Education and Artistic Voice Expression). Who was Diana Ferrus to you? I met Diana Ferrus in 2001, when we were both Master’s students in women’s and gender studies. We became firm friends, with Diana becoming my mentor, and a writer I interviewed for my scholarship on black women writers. She was a masterful orator and literary activist who always uplifted others, including me. Our friendship consisted of many beautiful moments of encouragement and working together. Diana and I laughed a lot, we loved a good gossip over a glass of wine and enjoyed talking about our work in progress. Sometimes we even wrote together, in silence. She gave excellent advice to this novice and was incredibly generous with her time in mentoring other writers, organising countless writing workshops for those who were written out of history, or had difficulty finding their voice. Listen to Ferrus talk about how she started writing here, in an impromptu interview I conducted with her in 2012.

Barbara Boswell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.