Born in Nylstroom on the 19th July 1946 in the Northern Transvaal, now known as Limpopo, Lucas Cornelis Malan was the fifth of six children born to a cabinet maker and his wife. His humble beginnings did not foretell his significant academic career or the prodigious literary success and influence he would bring to bear on the development of Afrikaans language teaching and the nation’s literature.

Mongane Wally Serote was born in Sophiatown on 8 May 1944, just four years before the National Party came to power in South Africa. His early education took place in the poverty-stricken township of Alexandra and later at Morris Isaacson High – the school in Jabavu, Soweto, that would much later play a significant role in the 1976 uprising against Bantu Education. As Serote’s high school years came to a close, he joined the African National Congress. He soon became involved with the Black Consciousness (BC) movement and was inspired by the poetry that spoke of black identity, resistance and revolt.

Robert Berold was born in Johannesburg in 1948, the oldest of three brothers. He studied chemical engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand and economics and English literature at Cambridge University. For the last 30 years he has lived in the Eastern Cape, on a farm near the university city of Grahamstown. He makes his living as a freelance editor of technical and environmental books and as a teacher of writing.

Yvette Christiansë is a South African-born poet and novelist whose writing explores the rich themes of the country’s history – slavery and apartheid, exile and displacement. The precise date of her birth in a humble dwelling in the curiously named Hondsebek (literally “the mouth of the dog”) is something of a mystery. “In truth,” she says, “only my mother, my now deceased grandparents, and the midwife who delivered me know. My official birth date is 12 December 1954, but we have always celebrated it on 4 August, which my entire family swears is the date I was born on. There’s a picture of me with this written on the back, but no year. You can imagine what hell the Green Card process was.”