Thembelani Ngenelwa

Thembelani Ngenelwa was born on the 13 March 1977 in the village of Madladleni, Engcobo in the Eastern Cape. He did his junior schooling at Esikhobeni JSS and his high schooling at Manzana SSS. in his hometown. He then went to the University of the Western Cape where he completed a degree in Computer Science and Information Systems. He started writing and performing poetry in his days as a student in university, inspired by struggle heroes and his unique surroundings, and is passionate about telling South African stories through the eyes of the marginalised. In 2003, a near-death experience prompted him to write The Day I Died, his first book, which was published in 2007. A Xhosa translation of the book is planned for release in 2008.

For more information about Thembelani Ngenelwa, click here.

Margie Orford

Margie Orford is a crime novelist, award-winning journalist, film director, and author of children's fiction, non-fiction and school text books. Born in London, she grew up in Namibia and South Africa. While at the University of Cape Town she wrote for Varsity and was detained during the State of Emergency in 1985. She wrote her final exams in prison. After travelling widely, she studied under J M Coetzee. In 1999 she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and while in New York she worked on a groundbreaking archival retrieval project, Women Writing Africa: The Southern Volume. Her latest book is Fabulously 40 and Beyond: Women Coming Into their Own (Spearhead/NAB, 2006). Margie is the author of several children's books, the first published by Heinemann in 1996. These are in English and have been translated into French, Portuguese, Xhosa and Afrikaans

For more information, visit, www.margieorford.com

Desmond Painter

Desmond Painter is a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Stellenbosch University, where he teaches courses in social and critical psychology. His research interests include the politics of nationalism, language, race and identity and the history and philosophy of psychology. He has co-edited two academic books, one on research methodology and the other on the history of psychology in South Africa, and has written numerous articles in academic journals and in the popular press. He serves on the editorial committee of LitNet Akademies. When he is not an academic he is also interested in contemporary fiction, music and film.

Dr Mamphela Ramphele

Mamphela Ramphele is a medical doctor with a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology and 23 honorary degrees from local and international institutions. She first rose to prominence in the 1970s as an activist and founder member, with Steve Biko, of the Black Consciousness Movement. They started Black Community Programmes in the Eastern Cape, and she founded the Zanempilo Community Health Centre in Zinyoka, a village outside King William's Town. Her project was cut short when she was detained in 1976 under section 10 of the Terrorism Act. From 1977 to 1984 she was banished to Lenyenye near Tzaneen, where she established the Ithuseng Community Health Programme. She served at various institutions including the South African Labour and Development Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, the Equal Opportunities Research Project and Idasa. Her academic career culminated in her appointment as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, where she steered the university during the crucial at the World Bank in Washington DC in 2000, and was co-chair of the Global Commission on International Migration from 2004 to 2005. In 2004 she returned to South Africa where she currently chairs Circle Capital Ventures. She serves on the boards of several major corporations and non-governmental organisations.

Ian Shapiro

Ian Shapiro is Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Born in South Africa, Shapiro is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a past fellow of the Carnegie Corporation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has held visiting appointments at the University of Cape Town and Nuffield College, Oxford. His most recent books are The Flight From Reality in the Human Sciences, and Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight Over Taxing Inherited Wealth (with Michael Graetz). His new book, Containment: Rebuilding a Strategy against Global Terror is forthcoming from Princeton University Press.

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