The impact of Laurens van der Post's books, lectures, and documentary motion pictures has been immense. In his 1969 book on van der Post, for example, Frederic I. Carpenter notes that the best comparison that van der Post's writing and personality suggest is with Lawrence of Arabia: “An almost legendary aura attaches to both men.” Jan Morris, concluding an adverse review in The Spectator (21 December 1974) of van der Post's novel A Far-Off Place (1974), wrote, “Laurens van der Post's absurdities are other men's achievements, and one of his doubts is worth a dozen of our poor certainties.” Perhaps Jean-Marc Pottiez summarized best and most positively when he wrote in his introduction to Feather Fall: An Anthology (1994), “Laurens van der Post has a unique capacity to inspire, to heighten awareness and fire the imagination.”

Laurens Jan van der Post was born 13 December 1906 in Philippolis, Orange Free State, South Africa, to Maria...