Eugene Marais

Eugène N. Marais
Eugène N. Marais – writer, lawyer and naturalist
Born	(1871-01-09)9 January 1871 Pretoria
Died	29 March 1936(1936-03-29) (aged 65) Farm near Pelindaba
Resting place	Heroes' Acre, Pretoria, South Africa
Occupation	Poet, naturalist, lawyer
Nationality	South Africa
Ethnicity	Afrikaner
Citizenship	South Africa
Spouse	Aletta Beyers (1871–1895)
Children	Eugène Charles Gerard Marais

Eugène Nielen Marais (/ˈjuːdʒiːn ˈniːlᵻn mɑːˈreɪ/; 9 January 1871 – 29 March 1936) was a South African lawyer, naturalist, poet and writer. He has been hailed as an intellectual genius and an Afrikaner hero.

Marais was born in Pretoria, the thirteenth and last child of Jan Christiaan Nielen Marais and Catharina Helena Cornelia van Niekerk. He attended school in Pretoria, Boshof and Paarl, and much of his early education was in English, as were his earliest poems. He matriculated at the age of sixteen.

After leaving school, he worked in Pretoria as a legal clerk and then as a journalist before becoming owner (at the age of twenty) of a newspaper called Land en Volk (Country and (the Afrikaner) People). He involved himself deeply in local politics.

He began taking opiates at an early age and graduated to morphine (then considered to be non-habitforming and safe) very soon thereafter. He became addicted, and his addiction ruled his affairs and actions to a greater or lesser extent throughout his life. When asked why he took drugs, he variously pleaded ill health, insomnia and, later, the death of his young wife as a result of the birth of his only child. Much later, he blamed accidental addiction while ill with malaria in Mozambique. Some claim his use of drugs was experimental and influenced by the philosophy of de Quincey.

Marais married Aletta Beyers, but she died from puerperal fever a year later, eight days after the birth of their son. Eugène Charles Gerard was Marais' only child.