Herkunft: South Africa

Mbalenhle Matandela

studied sociology with a focus on gender studies at the University of Cape Town. Her dissertation addresses the experiences of black women in the #RhodesMustFall movement. She was the project coordinator of Right2Protest, a coalition project of the University of the Witwatersrand that supports activists in South Africa in their

Masande Ntshanga

Masande Ntshanga was born in 1986 in the South African harbor city of East London. He studied film, media, English, and creative writing at the University of Cape Town. He was awarded the South African NRF Freestanding Masters Scholarship and was also the recipient of a prestigious Fulbright Award. He

Lewis Nkosi

Lewis Nkosi who was born in Durban, South Africa, in 1936 is considered one of Africa’s most important authors as well as literature and culture critics. He has been critically commenting on the cultural and political developments in his country and on the African continent since the 50s, when still

Leonie Joubert

The journalist has written predominately about climate change, biodiversity, natural history and wine. Her novel »Scorched« (2006) arose from her research into climate change in her home country, South Africa, and was distinguished with an honourable mention by the Sunday Times Alan Paton Literary Awards. The author has also received

Layla Al-Zubaidi

Layla Al-Zubaidi is the Head of the Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in South Africa. Before she took this post, she held assignments in Beirut and Ramallah. She is a co-editor of the PEN Award winning anthology Writing Revolution – The Voices from Tunis to Damascus (2013).

Lebogang Mashile

The poet, performer, actress, presenter and producer Lebogang Mashile, daughter of exiled South Africans, was born in the in 1979. At the age of sixteen years she and her parents returned to their home country. In her work as a life skills facilitator for adolescents – focussing on topics like

Kenneth Bonert

Kenneth Bonert was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1972, where he grew up until he and his parents emigrated to Canada in 1989. In Toronto, Bonert studied Journalism at Ryerson University and then worked as a reporter for newspapers like the »Globe and Mail« and the »National Post«. Bonert’s

John Mateer

John Mateer was born in Roodepoort, a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1971. After emigrating to Australia in 1989, he lived in the cities of Perth and Melbourne. In 1994 he published his first volume of poetry, »Burning Swans«, followed by other collection of poems like »Barefoot Speech« (2000).

Jenny Robson

Jenny Robson was born and raised in Cape Town in apartheid South Africa. After studying to be a primary school teacher in Mowbray and obtaining a bachelor’s in philosophy from the University of South Africa, she worked as a teacher in Simonstown before moving to Botswana, where she still teaches

Jeremiah Lemohang Mosese

is an award-winning South African/Lesotho filmmaker based in Berlin. He has worked as writer, director, cinematographer since 2007. His work ranges from medium length, short films, and image films to video art. Two of his short films, »Mosonngoa« (2014) and »Behemoth or The Game of God« (2015), have been screened

Jeremy Goldkorn

studied literature at the University of Cape Town, then worked in Beijing for magazines such as »Beijing Scene« and »TimeOut« and eventually founded Danwei, a China-focused blog and media research company. He is the editor-in-chief of »SupChina«, a news magazine in New York, and co-founder of the podcast Sinica, which

Ivan Vladislavić

Ivan Vladislavić was born in 1957 in Pretoria, South Africa. Since the early 1970s he has lived in Johannesburg, where he studied Afrikaans and English language and literature at the University of the Witwatersrand. Vladislavić worked as an editor at the oppositional publisher Ravan Press, and for several years was