Photo by Adam Mays

b. 1990, Durban, South Africa
Based in Edinburgh, Scotland

Present roles:

Qualifications:

  • PhD, English & Writing Practice, University of Dundee, 2024

  • MA, English Language & Literature, University of Cape Town, 2016

  • BA (Hons), Media Theory & Practice, University of Cape Town, 2011

  • BA, English and Journalism & Media Studies Rhodes University, 2010

Grants, scholarships and awards:

  • Skye Foundation Scholar, 2019–2024

  • Oppenheimer Memorial Trust grant, 2019–2024

  • Institute for Creative Arts grant, for production of biography at ICA Live Arts Festival, 2018

  • Mandela Rhodes Scholar, 2015–2016

  • Winner: K. Sello Duiker Memorial Award, 2022, for A Hibiscus Coast

  • Winner: Nadine Gordimer Award, 2018, for The First Law of Sadness

  • Winner: Thomas Pringle Award for Short Story in Periodicals and Best Short Play, 2016, for “1-HR FOTO”

  • Winner: National Arts Festival Short Sharp Stories Awards, 2014, for “Turning”

  • Winner: South African Arts Journalism Awards Special Merit for Features, 2014, for “Vida Loves You”

  • Runner-up: Desperate Literature Award for Short Fiction, 2021, for “Section 22”

  • Shortlisted: BBC National Short Story Award, 2023, for “The Storm”

  • Shortlisted: NIHSS Award for Best Poetry, 2023, for The Book of Unrest

  • Shortlisted: New Contrast National Poetry Prize, 2021

  • Shortlisted: Nadine Gordimer Award, 2017, for Stations

  • Shortlisted: White Review Prize, 2015, for “Posman”

  • Longlisted: Sunday Times Fiction Prize, 2024, for Tunnel

  • Longlisted: Sunday Times Fiction Prize, 2022, for A Hibiscus Coast

  • Longlisted: Edge Hill Prize, 2017, for Stations

  • Nominee: South African Arts Journalist of the Year, 2014 and 2015

  • Mail & Guardian Young South African, 2018

Additionally, my writing has appeared in various media around the world, including on BBC Radio 4, Radio 2000, and Citi FM (Ghana), and in World Literature Today, The White Review, the South African Sunday Times, the Mail & Guardian, Chimurenga, Portside Review, The Johannesburg Review of Books, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

See my LinkedIn page for a fuller curriculum vitae.