Etienne van Heerden is founder-editor of LitNet, which grew from a literary e-zine in 1999 to a multilingual online journal with close to 750 000 page impressions per month. As South Africa’s leading Web journal for new writing in English, Afrikaans, Xhosa and other languages, it has developed into a broad cultural forum, with rigorous debates and new material added six days per week.

Etienne van Heerden is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of LitNet Akademies, an accredited academic online journal. This journal publishes Afrikaans texts that have been peer reviewed by experts in the Humanities. The journal aims to promote Afrikaans research specifically in this field. Click here to read LitNet Akademies.

LitNet’s mission statement:

LitNet aims to provide a robust virtual home to culture lovers and to stay ahead as the leading South African multicultural online journal. As a broad cultural journal with an Afrikaans speaking heart but an openness to a multicultural environment and living space, it accommodates other languages such as Xhosa, English and Dutch. Now firmly established within the Afrikaans environment, LitNet is committed to growing its English and African language content. Because of its legitimacy within its niche market, its marriage to established publishers, Arts Festivals and other cultural institutions, as well as its unique texture and sound and conservative expenditure, LitNet is set to keep on growing as a space for new writing and vigorous socio-cultural opinion. Combining popular interactivity with quality content establishes LitNet as a home for the homegrown philosopher and the more highbrow intellectual.