(Pretoria, South Africa, 1957) lives in Johannesburg where he works as a writer, journalist and editor. He has been awarded various prizes for his literary work, which includes amongst others his collection of short stories Missing Persons (1989) and his novel The Folly (1993) His most recent and well received book The Restless Supermarket (2001), is a slightly surrealistic story about a conservative, retired proofreader who has dedicated his life to reading phonebooks. The Dutch translation of this book (De rusteloze supermarkt) will be presented during the Winternachten festival.
WIN2005

(Pinetown, South Africa, 1965) grew up on a vineyard in the Cape. Blacklaws has studied literature and after that worked as an English teacher. At present he lives in Germany where he is an English teacher at the International school in Frankfurt. In 2004 he made his debut with Karoo Boy. The Dutch translation will appear in in 2005.
WIN2004

(Marken, 1958-2009) was a poet, a writer and a commentator, with a regular column on the Forum page and the book pages of the Volkskrant. Zeeman was the editor of the arts section of the Volkskrant and from 2006-2007 its Rome correspondent. In 2006 he and the writer Abdelkader Benali published an exchange of letters, exchanging ideas on politics, life, love and literature. In 2002 Zeeman received the Gouden Ganzenveer (Golden Goose Quill) for his merits for Dutch literature. Zeeman became well-known in the 1990s as the host of his monthly book programme 'Late at night after a short walk', later to be renamed 'Zeeman with books'. In 1991 he published his first volume of poetry, Beeldenstorm (Iconoclasm), winning him the C. Buddingh Prize. His second volume Verhoudingen (Relationships) appeared in 1995. In the same year he published short stories entitled De Verduistering (The Darkening). He died in 2009.