(1947-2005) was a painter and writer. He lived in South Africa since he was nine and after his studies in the arts remigrated to Europe. In 2001 Henk van Woerden made an international breakthrough. In that year he received for his book Een mond vol glas (A mouthful of glass) (1998) the prestigious Sunday Times Fiction/ Alan Paton Award, the award for the best book in South Africa. Een mond vol glas, a chronicle about Tsafendas, the murderder of prime minister Verwoerd, is the last section of a triptych about South Africa. His prose debut Moenie kyk nie (Don't look) (1993), which was crowned with the Geertjan Lubberhuizen award, was the first section. The second section was the novel Tikoes (1996). By the end of 2002 Notities van een luchtfietser (Notes from an air cyclist) appeared, in which van Woerden writes about both his imaginary and his real travels. In February 2003 Henk van Woerden received the Frank Kellendonk award. In October 2005 his last novel was published, Ultramarijn. It was awarded the Flemish literary prize the Gouden Uil in 2006.

(South Africa, 1954) debuted with a juvenile novel (Matoli), using a farm setting as a microcosm of South Africa’s racial tensions in 1978. His first international breakthrough was the novel Ancestral Voices, which was published in ten languages. It won all the major literary awards in South Africa, and established Van Heerden as the leading novelist of his generation. He went on to publish the novels Casspirs and Camparis, Leap Year and Kikuyu, followed with his major novel The Long Silence of Mario Salviati. Van Heerden also wrote and staged satirical cabarets in the Dutch and German tradition, which was a very effective method of protest during the difficult eighties. Van Heerden teaches at the University of Cape Town, where he is Professor in the School of Languages and Literatures, and chairs the Afrikaans and Dutch Studies Section. He regularly reads his fiction at events such as the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, the Winter Nights Festival in The Netherlands, the Time of the Writer Festival in Germany, the Zimbabwe Book Fair and other festivals and events internationally. For his most recent novel, 30 Nagte in Amsterdam, in 2010 he received the Hertzog Award, the most important literary award for Afrikaans literature.

(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.