Antjie Krog

(1952-) Poet, journalist, playwright, performer and academic. Born Anna Elizabeth (Antjie) Krog in Kroonstad, Orange Free State, South Africa, into an Afrikaner family of writers, she grew up on a farm, attending primary and secondary school in the area. In 1973 she earned a BA (Hons) degree in English from the University of the Orange Free State, and an MA in Afrikaans from the University of Pretoria in 1976. With a teaching diploma from the University of South Africa (UNISA) she would lecture at a segregated teacher’s training college for black South Africans. She also led and contributed to performances by her students. She later became the editor of the independent Afrikaans journal Die Suid-Afrikaan. On the strength of her work there, she was invited to join the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). For two years, reporting as Antjie Samuel, she contributed to the radio programme AM Live with items on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Based on this experience she wrote what is possibly her best known book, Country of My Skull, which chronicled the TRC and was later staged and filmed. In 2004 she joined the Arts faculty of the University of the Western Cape as extraordinary Professor of Literature and Philosophy. Her first formal drama text was Waarom is dié wat voor toi-toi altyd so vet? ("Why are those who toyi-toyi in front always so fat?"), and from its first performances at Aardklop in 1999 was considered a powerful contribution to South Africa's ongoing political debate about reconciliation. As translator she was responsible for the Afrikaans version of Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom as well as the play Mamma Medea, from the Dutch play of the same name by Tom Lanoye in 2001. In 200* she translated In October/November 2006 she and the Belgian performance poet Tom Lanoye undertook a combined stage tour of Flanders, the Netherlands and South Africa. It was a dynamic two-hander performance, focusing on language linkages, which received excellent reviews and was a continuation of earlier instances of collaboration between the two artists.

By 2003 she had received 4 honorary doctorates, and 14 literary and journalism awards, including the prestigious Hertzogprys (Hertzog Prize, 1990); the Foreign Correspondent Award (1996) and the Pringle Award (1996) and the Alan Paton Award (1996).

She married architect John Samuel and has four children: Andries, Susan, Philip, and Willem; Four grandchildren: Anouk, Antjie, Jana and Phillip.