Elsa Joubert OIS ‑ a Sestigers Afrikaans-language writer succumbed to Covid-19-related caused in Cape Town on 14 June 2020.
She rose to prominence with her novel Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena, which was translated into 13 languages, as well as staged as a drama and filmed as Poppie Nongena.
Elsa Joubert grew up in Paarl and matriculated from the all-girls school La Rochelle in Paarl in 1939. She then studied at the University of Stellenbosch from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1942 and an SED (Secondary Education Diploma) in 1943. She continued her studies at the University of Cape Town which she left with a Master's degree in Dutch-Afrikaans literature in 1945.
After graduating, Joubert taught at the Hoër Meisieskool, an all-girls high school in Cradock, then worked as the editor of the women’s pages of Huisgenoot, a well-known Afrikaans family magazine, from 1946 to 1948. She then started writing full-time and travelled extensively in Africa, from the springs of the Nile in Uganda, through the Sudan, to Cairo, as well as to Mozambique, Mauritius, Réunion, Madagascar, and Angola. She also visited Indonesia.
In 1950. Joubert married Klaas Steytler, a journalist and later publisher and author, who died in 1998. She had three children, two daughters and one son, and lived in Oranjezicht, Cape Town.