Editors (South Africa)

NATIONAL EDITOR

Liesl Jobson graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BMus in 1991 and an MA (Writing) with Distinction in 2007.

She is the author of a collection of prose poems and flash fiction, 100 Papers (Botsotso, 2008), which won the Ernst van Heerden Creative Writing Award. Her poetry debut, View from an Escalator (Botsotso, 2008), was published with a Community Publishing Project grant from the Centre for the Book.

She is a senior correspondent for the South African literary website, BOOK SA, and teaches poetry for the South African Writers College. She plays bassoon and contrabassoon when the stars align and the reeds are good.


ASSISTANT EDITORS

Charl-Pierre Naude was born in 1958 and has two volumes of Afrikaans poetry published: Die Nomadiese Oomblik, Tafelberg, 1995, which won the Ingrid Jonker Prize in 1997, and In die geheim van die dag, Protea, 2005, which was awarded the M-Net Prize for Afrikaans Poetry and the Protea Prize in 2005.

In 1999 he was invited by Dutch poet laureate Gerrit Komrij to do a reading tour of The Netherlands and Belgium. Translations of his poems have since appeared in numerous Dutch and Belgian literary magazines. In 2000 Poetry International (Rotterdam) presented a translation project of his work. Turkish poet/translator Ilyas Tunc has recently published Naude’s poetry in a Turkish translation.

Naude compiled and edited an anthology of new Afrikaans poetry: My ousie is ‘n blom, Snailpress, 2006. His first collection of English poetry is Against the light, Protea, 2007.

He grew up in East London. And grew out of that in several other places.


Vonani Bila, born in 1972 in Shirley village, Limpopo, is the founding editor of the Timbila poetry journal and directs the Timbila Poetry Project in Limpopo province.

He co-authored No Free Sleeping, Botsotso Publishing, 1998, with Alan Finlay and Donald Parenzee. His solo collections include In the name of Amandla, Timbila Publishing, 2004, Magicstan Fires Timbila Publishing, 2006 and Handsome Jita: Selected Poems, University of KwaZulu Natal Press, 2007.

His poetry has been translated into Finnish, Turkish, French and Dutch.

Bila is the author of eight story books for new adult readers in Xitsonga, Sepedi and English, namely The Girl with a Golden Tooth, Lengwalo la Mahlodi, Dikeledi, Mali ya Mudende, Ndzi Rhandza Ohazurike, The Missing Goats, Magweya and I Vukati Muni? His children’s books are Whose Lunch and Boy-fish.

Bila was nominated for the DaimlerChrysler Award for Poetry 2005.


Pravasan Pillay was born in 1978 and lives in Durban.

He studied English Literature and Philosophy at the then University of Durban-Westville, before being appointed as an associate lecturer in Philosophy. In 2003, he was awarded the Huygens scholarship by the Dutch government and spent a year reading philosophy in The Netherlands.

Pillay has contributed poetry to various online and print journals, including Donga, New Coin, Chimurenga, and Carapace. He has also contributed chapters to several non-fiction books and has written articles, predominantly on music and popular culture, for, amongst others, The Sunday Tribune, The Daily News, The Independent on Sunday, Student Life Magazine (SL), Blu Magazine and The New Internationalist.

He currently works as a publications manager at the Centre for Creative Arts.