Michiel Heyns was born on 2 December 1943 in Stellenbosch. He studied at the Universities of Stellenbosch and Cambridge and was a professor in English at the University of Stellenbosch from 1987 until his early retirement in 2003.
He has become renowned as a translator and was awarded the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the Sol Plaatje Award for Translating for the translation of Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat. Both his latest novel The Wildest Beauty and his translation of Annemarié van Niekerk’s memoir Onder ‘n bloedrooi hemel (Under a Blood Red Sky) was published in 2026.
