27/08/2026
August is Women's Month! Each day Amazwi will share some inspiration from one of our nation's many women writers.
In 1994, Julia Martin introduced herself as, ‘a woman, as a writer, a university English teacher, a music-maker, a vegetarian, a middle-class South African, so-called “white,” brown-haired, green-eyed, an only child, a person in a committed relationship, an eco-political worker, a Buddhist, 33 years old, a ceramicist, a karate sempai, a pruner of roses, a friend.’ Born in 1959, Martin grew up in Pietermaritzburg and studied at Natal University and the University of Cape Town. Since the mid-1980s she has been teaching at the University of the Western Cape.
Her books are concerned with memory, ecology and human belonging. ‘Writing Home’ brings together three poetic narrative essays, thoughtful of the lives of all beings on earth. ‘A Millimetre of Dust’ recounts a trip with her family from Cape Town to the Northern Cape to visit archaeological sites, and integrates environmental issues with postcolonial writing.
‘Nobody Home: Writing, Buddhism, and Living in Places’ collects interviews between American poet Gary Snyder and Martin, and a selection of their correspondence from 1983 to 2011. ‘Syntax of the River: The Pattern which Connects’ records Martin’s conversations with another American author, Barry Lopez, about the practice of writing in the face of the present environmental catastrophe. Her most recent work, ‘On the Sponge Islands: Loss and Restoration in the Aegean’ shows a similar concern for ecological harmony.
Although Martin has written and published poems and short stories since childhood, she worked in the sphere of creative non-fiction as author, academic and reviewer, blending personal essay with a deep concern for the world as a spiritual and ecological whole. Historical insight and memory are considered in a context of justice, kindness and responsibility.
