by Sahar Foladi
Ernie Rijs, Pakenham teacher at St Peter’s College Clyde campus published his first novel, The Crossing, in September this year.
Coming from migrant Dutch parents who fled their country in the ‘50s after the Second World War for a better future, Mr Rijs, eldest of nine siblings, paved the way just for that.
“They wanted us to have a good future, they wanted us to have a good time. But at the same time, it meant that I lost some of my Dutch culture,” he said.
One of the characters in Mr Rijs novel is South Sudanese, which adds a fascinating twist to the whole concept of the story.
His narrative, also derived from his own personal experience as a Hollander, Mr Rijs went back to visit his country after 30 years to reclaim his culture and all that his parents had shared with him about their home country.
“Trying to reclaim who you are is a key part in the story,” he said.
Working in a school environment and meeting different people and students from all walks of life, Mr Rijs has seen adults and students alike make decisions without though for the consequences, thus the motivation to write. However, the thought of writing a novel wasn’t always front of mind for Mr Rijs.
“I just wanted to achieve writing something,” he said.
But that determination alone did not drive him. Mr Rijs started to learn more from teaching students from refugee backgrounds, which changed the entire plot.
“It wasn’t until I arrived in a school in Tarneit, the west of Melbourne, where I came in contact with more and more South Sudanese young people, some of them from refugee backgrounds not all of them,” he said.
“I got inspiration to include a South Sudanese character in the book from a couple of South Sudanese men that I was teaching while I was there, who had really harrowing but interesting stories,” he said.
Mr Rijs has been teaching for 45 years, and has taught variety of subjects including Humanities, Geography, and Psychology and is teaching English and English Language.
He is working on his second novel with the working title being, ‘Coal,’ and will also start work on the sequel to The Crossing next year.
“I had an overall idea, but the story told itself – these people that I got to know, they told the story,” he said.
