Paul C Venter

Paul C Venter's very first book purchase was "Tarzan the Terrible" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. His first typewriter was an Olivetti Manual.

Paul C Venter, multi-award winning writer and director, was born on 1 December 1947 at the Queen Vic Children's Hospital, Johannesburg. He grew up in the Bushveld and on the Westrand and matriculated at Hoërskool die Burger, West rand. As a keen sportsman, he took part in rugby, cricket, squash, diving.

Venter's career began in 1964 as a reporter at "Die Vaderland". From 1972 he was a magazine journalist at the Republican Press in Durban.

As a journalist he got to know Africa, Europe and the Far East. In his own time, he also wrote screenplays for films, photo books, children's books, youth books, factual books and story books.

For a year he was story editor of "Die Brandwag" and advertising writer at 20th Century-Fox.

When television arrived in South Africa in 1975, under the supervision of the experienced Jan Scholtz, he wrote scripts for the very first Afrikaans drama series, "Keertyd". He learned so much from Scholtz that he was able to tackle "Opdrag", a military drama series, on his own for Kavalier Films' Bertrand Retief.

In 1979 he became a full-time writer and then decided to live with his family in Hermanus. In the Cape, a meeting with film and television producer Dirk de Villiers led to the writing of the popular "Arende" series.

Ultimately, Paul devoted 25 years of his life to television drama. He received several awards for it, at one stage became a producer and director himself, and some of his series were sold abroad.

Venter considers his biggest TV hits to be: "Arende", "Konings", "Onder engele" and "Vlug na Egipte".

Venter lists the following firsts on his website: first novel written: "Nes die wind en die see"; wrote first non-fiction book: “Soweto, Shadow City”;

first film written: "Running Young"; first TV drama series written: "Ou Grote";

first soap opera: "Muvhango".