Mandla Langa, born 1950 in Durban, studied for a BA at Fort Hare but left following student protests, then taught at a high school before going into exile in 1976. In 1980 he won the Drum Magazine story contest and in 1991 was awarded the Arts Council of Great Britain Bursary. He was Deputy Chief Representative and Cultural Representative of the ANC in the UK and a weekly columnist of the Sunday Independent. His books include Tenderness of Blood, A Rainbow on a Paper Sky, The Naked Song and Other Stories, The Memory of Stones and The Lost Colours of the Chameleon, which won him the Commonwealth Writers Prize [Best Book, Africa] in 2009. In 2007 he received SA’s National Order of Ikhamanga (Silver) for literary, journalistic and cultural achievements, and in 2009 a Living Legends Award from the eThekwini Municipality. He has been the Convener of the Task Group on Government Communications; editor-at-large of Leadership Magazine; Programme Director for SABC TV; Chair of the Independent Communications Authority of SA; and now chairs the board of MultiChoice Africa.  Mandla is married to June Josephs and they have two daughters.

Margie Orford is an award-winning journalist, an internationally acclaimed writer and the author of the Clare Hart crime series. Her first two novels, Like Clockwork and Blood Rose have been translated into more than eight languages and the third in the series, Daddy’s Girl appeared late last year. She was born in London, grew up in Namibia and was educated in South Africa and the United States where she was a Fulbright Scholar. She lives in Cape Town with her husband and three daughters. She is the patron of Rape Crisis, Western Cape and is on the board of South African PEN.

Marida Fitzpatrick studied journalism at the University of Johannesburg and passed her honours degree cum laude. Her early career was in news journalism, rushing after many an ambulance, crime scene and municipal meeting. This was followed by work for Huisgenoot and You magazine, and she is now a features writer for Beeld producing weekly personality profiles and research articles. Although journalism is her full-time career, she has always been interested in writing fiction and her first chick lit novel  Iemand vir 'n scoop? is set in a newsroom. Marida currently writes scripts for the MNet production Binnelanders Sub Judice in her free time and lives in Johannesburg

Mark Behr is the author of the novels The Smell of Apples, Embrace and Kings of the Water. His work is translated into ten languages and has received awards in South Africa, the USA and the United Kingdom. He is Professor of World Literature and Fiction Writing at the College of Santa Fe in the USA, and he teaches in the MA programmes of the University of New Mexico and the University of Cape Town. He travels annually
between South Africa and the USA.

is the winemaker and restaurateur at La Petite Ferme in Franschhoek, and the author of the recent  La Petite Ferme Cookbook.

Mervyn Sloman is the owner of the Book Lounge in Cape Town, which opened its doors in December 2007 and last year was awarded the Sefika award for best bookshop in the country.

Mhlobo Jadezwini was born in Dutywa, kwaGcaleka and studied at Fort Hare and Stellenbosch, where he has taught isiXhosa literature and language in the Department of African Languages since 1983, and served on various isiXhosa language boards since 1984. His research field is isiXhosa poetry. He has read and published a number of research papers at national and international conferences of African Languages, and has taught at universities in Germany. In 2006 he attended a UNESCO conference on endangered languages in Mali, followed in 2007 by a UNESCO conference on sharing of good practice in African languages. His publications include the children’s book UTshepo Mde / Tall Enough (recently translated into Portuguese and published in Brazil) and an Oxford University Press anthology of isiXhosa poetry, Umdiliya wesihobe.

Michele Magwood is an award-winning literary journalist who was for many years the Books Editor of the Sunday Times. She is about to launch her website magwoodonbooks, and is partnering in a new bookstore in Johannesburg called Jellicoe Books.

Michiel Heyns grew up all over South Africa – Thaba Nchu, Kimberley, Grahamstown, Cape Town – and was educated at the Universities of Stellenbosch and Cambridge. For much of his adult life he was an academic, lecturing in English at the University of Stellenbosch, but after publication of his first novel, The Children’s Day, he took to writing full-time with The Reluctant Passenger, The Typewriter’s Tale and Bodies Politic, which won the 2009 Herman Charles Bosman Prize. In 2006 he translated two works by Marlene van Niekerk, Memorandum and Agaat, which won the English Academy's Sol Plaatje Award for Translating in 2008 and was awarded the Sunday Times Fiction Prize for 2007; published as The Way of the Women in the UK, it was short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. He has also translated Equatoria by Tom Dreyer.  Michiel reviews regularly for the Sunday Independent, for which he was awarded the English Academy's Pringle Prize for Reviewing for 2006

Mike van Graan is the Secretary General of Arterial Network, an Africa-wide network of artists, activists and organisations engaged in the African creative sector. He is also the Executive Director of the African Arts Institute, an NGO that harnesses South African resources, expertise, infrastructure and markets in support of creative practice on the continent. One of the country’s leading contemporary playwrights, his most recent play Brothers in Blood, won the 2009 Naledi Theatre Award for Best New Play while Iago’s Last Dance was nominated for the 2009 Fleur du Cap Award for Best New Script.
Mike was born and lives in Cape Town with his wife and two sons.

Mulenga Kapwepwe holds a BA degree from the University of Zambia and is currently Chairperson of the ARTerial Network Task Team. In Zambia she is the Chairperson of the Zambia National Arts Council, where she works with a number of networks and funders and civil society organisations. She is a writer and has published a number of books. She also has been actively engaged in promoting various developments in the arts over the last 15 years and was Technical Advisor to the European Union for the Zambia Culture Sector Development Programme, a three-year programme that was aimed at developing the arts and protecting heritage in Zambia. She is also serving as a Commissioner for UNESCO (Zambia) and has been involved in a number of policy developments in the cultural sector.

Muriel Barbery was born in 1969. She has had two novels published by the French publisher Gallimard: Une Gourmandise (Gourmet Rhapsody) (2000) and L'Elegance du Hérisson (The Elegance of the Hedgehog) (2006). They were both translated into numerous languages. After teaching philosophy for over ten years, she is now living in Japan and writing full time.

Myrna Robins moved from academic library to newspaper newsroom in a career switch that saw her take on a post as Cape Argus food and feature writer and restaurant reviewer. Later she added  travel and wine to her portfolio and still writes a weekly wine column for the Saturday Argus. She was the first recipient of the Galliova award for South African food writing, winning again in 1994. She was an international juror for the Slow Food movement and founding member of the Cape convivium and judges for the Southern Cape wine show and Diners' Club winelist of the year contest. Myrna has published seven books, the latest of which is Franschhoek Food which scooped a local World Gourmand award this year. She enjoys delving into the history of regional food and wine, and Cape history in general. She and her husband relish rural life in the village of McGregor in the Breede river valley.