Litnet

Pamela Oberem was born in Johannesburg where she spent her entire school career at various Catholic convents. Her childhood was marked by a mania for books from Durrell to Dickens, and an obsession with the natural world. After matriculating she went to study veterinary science at Pretoria University, where she caused consternation among thin-lipped “koshuismoeders” by walking around barefoot and refusing to wear stockings on Sundays. She married a fellow veterinary student and was subsequently excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Undeterred she went to work as a state veterinarian in Namaqualand, where no female vet had trodden before. Here she did post-mortems on hundreds of sheep and discovered the versatility of local abattoirs, which were often used for slaughtering dassies as well as local livestock.

Her next career move was to the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute as a researcher on infectious diseases and veterinary vaccines for roughly twenty years, which gave her an opportunity to travel the world a bit. Up to this point her writing career was confined to scientific publications, but she began writing fiction roughly fifteen years ago, starting off with an earnest first novel which a literary agent dismissed as an apprenticeship.

When she left Onderstepoort to write a series of books on animal diseases for local companies and publishers, Pamela had more time to spend on fiction writing, so continued writing short stories and novels despite any noticeable lack of success. The Lazarus Funeral Parlour was her first published novel, although there are a number lurking darkly on her computer. She currently divides her time between technical and fiction writing, managing a game farm in the Waterberg and a household in Pretoria, and doing the odd veterinary consultancy in strange parts of the world like Mongolia (Outer). She is mother to two lovely boerboels, Joni and Dimple, and is still married to the same husband, despite his having got her excommunicated. 

Opgedateer/Updated: 2010-11-09

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