Achmat
Dangor

Achmat Dangor was born in Johannesburg in 1948, and after high school, lived in several small rural South African towns.

He studied literature at Rhodes University, and has published two poetry collections: Bulldozer (1983) and Private Voices (1992). His first three novels were Waiting for Leila (1981), The Z Town Trilogy (1990), and Kafka’s Curse (1997).

His novel Bitter Fruit (2003), was shortlisted for the 2003 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. It tells the story of Silas and Lydia Ali, a couple of mixed-race ancestry, and their son, and is set in post-apartheid South Africa.

His latest book is Strange Pilgrimages (2013), a collection of short stories with ‘the struggle years’ in South Africa as their central theme.