Daphne Marie Rooke (née Pizzey) (6 March 1914 — 21 January 2009 ) was a South African author of works such as "Mittee", "Ratoons" and "Wizards' Country". She also wrote travel articles and books for children set in India, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Daphne Rooke was born in Boksburg, Transvaal; the youngest of six children. Her father was English. Her mother was an Afrikaaner from a well-known family that included the writer Leon Maré and a founder of Pietersburg, Siegfried Maré. After her father's death in the First World War, the family relocated to Natal, where they lived a hardscrabble farming life. During this time, her mother published a book, "The Children of the Veld" (under the name "Mare Knevitt"). This inspired Daphne to try her hand at writing and she became a journalist. In 1946, she was co-winner of the Afrikaanse Pers literary prize, for a work that was eventually published as her first novel, under the title "A Grove of Fever Trees". In the meantime (1937) she had married an Australian named Irvin ("Bertie") Rooke, who she had met while doing organizational work for the Transport Workers Union. Following the Durban riots in 1949, they left for Australia. They returned to Natal in the fifties but, disturbed by the police state mentality in South Africa, moved back to Australia in 1965. In the 1980s her work was "rediscovered" by the University of Natal, which awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1997. She remained in Australia until Bertie's death in 1989 when she moved to Cambridge, England, where she lived for the rest of her life.
