[3] Her books have been translated into fourteen languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew and Icelandic,[4] and over a million copies have been sold worldwide.
After graduating from the local high school in 1957, she studied music at a conservatory in Oudtshoorn as well as at the Holy Cross Convent in Graaff-Reinet.
Before gaining fame and wide acclaim for her first "forest novel", she also wrote stories for magazines as well as two popular novels – 'n Huis vir Nadia (A House for Nadia) (1982) and Petronella van Aarde, Burgemeester (Petronella van Aarde, Mayor) (1983).
She won numerous literary prizes for her famous works, and Fiela's Child and Circles in a Forest were made into films.
After a short sickbed caused by heart failure, she died in Mossel Bay, South Africa, survived by her three daughters.