Afrikaans dramatist and writer Chris Barnard was attacked and beaten by robbers in his Nelspruit home earlier this week, according to a report on Friday.

"It felt like a tacky movie... as if you can't believe what you're seeing," 73-year-old Barnard told Beeld.

He was watching television on Wednesday evening when armed men broke into his home on the farm Thuli, near Nelspruit.

"Only when I saw the second two men standing behind the first two, did I realise that it wasn't a cheap movie after all," he said.

The attackers hit him in the face and bound him with wire, before ransacking his home.

They stole Barnard's laptop, which contained many of his unfinished projects, a safe, and his bed, which they loaded onto his bakkie.

The robbers tied Barnard to a chair and left.

He fell over in his efforts to free himself, and spent the next 12 hours lying on the floor. He was discovered by employees arriving for work in the morning.

He was treated by paramedics, but refused to go to hospital.

Barnard has twice won the Hertzog Prize for literature and has penned a number of popular radio, television and movie scripts including Paljas and Die Storie van Klara Viljee.