Kabelo Sello Duiker was a South African novelist. His debut novel, Thirteen Cents, won the 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, Africa Region. His second novel, The Quiet Violence of Dreams, won the 2002 Herman Charles Bosman Prize. He also worked in advertising and as a screenwriter.
Zoë Wicomb is a South African-Scottish author and academic who has lived in the UK since the 1970s. In 2013, she was awarded the inaugural Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for her fiction.
Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ is a Kenyan American poet, author, and academic. He is associate professor of literatures in English at Cornell University and co-founder of the Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Writing. His father is the author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. His family was deeply impacted by the bloody British suppression of the Mau Mau revolution.
Kirsten Miller is a South African novelist, writer and artist with six full-length books published between 2006 and 2021.
Ceridwen Dovey is a South African and Australian social anthropologist and author. In 2009 she was named a 5 under 35 nominee by the National Book Foundation and in 2020 won The Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing.
Graeme Friedman is a clinical psychologist and an award-winning writer whose short stories have appeared in anthologies published internationally. His book The Fossil Artist, a novel about crime, authenticity, what it means to be human and how we come to love, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
Nozizwe Cynthia Jele is a South African novelist. Her novel Happiness is a Four-Letter Word won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book, Africa Region and the M-Net film prize at the 2011 M-Net Literary Awards. The novel was later adapted into a movie.
Finuala Dowling is a South African poet and writer.
Yvette Christiansë is a South African-born poet and novelist. She currently lives in New York City and teaches at Barnard College. She has also taught at Fordham University, also in New York City.
Maxine Case is a South African novelist, and short story writer. Her debut novel, All We Have Left Unsaid, won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book, Africa Region and was the joint winner of the Herman Charles Bosman Prize 2007.
Diane Awerbuck is a South African novelist. Her novel, Gardening at Night, won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best First Book, and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. In 2011, her collection of short stories, Cabin Fever, was published by Random House Struik. Her novel, Home Remedies, was published by Random House Struik in August 2012. She was shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2014, and won the Short Story Day Africa competition the same year.
Zukiswa Wanner is a South African journalist, novelist and editor born in Zambia and now based in Kenya. Since 2006, when she published her first book, her novels have been shortlisted for awards including the South African Literary Awards (SALA) and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. In 2015, she won the K Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award for London Cape Town Joburg (2014). In 2014, Wanner was named on the Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature.
Ellen Banda-Aaku is a Zambian author, radio drama and film producer who was born in the UK and grew up in Africa. She is the author of two novels and several books for children, and has had short stories published in anthologies and other outlets.
Imraan Coovadia is a South African novelist, essayist, and academic. He is the director of the creative writing program at the University of Cape Town. He has taught 19th-Century Studies and Creative Writing at a number of US universities. His debut novel, The Wedding, published simultaneously in the US and SA in 2001, has been translated into Hebrew and Italian.
Jeanne Goosen was a South African journalist, poet and writer. She wrote short stories, children's books, plays and award-winning novels.
Hawa Jande Golakai is a Liberian writer and clinical scientist. In 2014 she was chosen as one of 39 of Sub-Saharan Africa's most promising writers under the age of 40, showcased in the Africa39 project and included in the anthology Africa39: New Writing from Africa South of the Sahara.
Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is a Zimbabwe-born writer and professor of creative writing. She is the author of Shadows, a novella and House of Stone, a novel.
Yewande Omotoso is a South African-based novelist, architect and designer, who was born in Barbados and grew up in Nigeria. She currently lives in Johannesburg. Her two published novels have earned her considerable attention, including winning the South African Literary Award for First-Time Published Author, being shortlisted for the South African Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the M-Net Literary Awards 2012, and the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature, and being longlisted for the 2017 Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction. She is the daughter of Nigerian writer Kole Omotoso, and the sister of filmmaker Akin Omotoso.
Bronwyn Law-Viljoen is a South African writer, editor, publisher and professor. She is the co-founder of the publisher Fourthwall Books and owns a bookstore called Edition. She acts as the primary editor for works on law and history of South Africa and the architecture and building process of its constitutional court structures, along with artistic book publications of the work of William Kentridge. She has also published her own novel called The Printmaker.
Fred Khumalo is a South African journalist and author. His books encompass various genres, including novels, non-fiction, memoir and short stories. Among awards he has received are the European Union Literary Award, the Alan Paton Award and the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award. His writing has appeared in various publications, including the Sunday Times, Toronto Star, New African, The Sowetan and Isolezwe. In 2008, he hosted Encounters, a public-debate television programme, on SABC 2.
