Tatamkhulu Afrika

Tatamkhulu Afrika was born in Egypt in 1920 to an Arab father and a Turkish mother. He was brought to South Africa in 1923, orphaned, and raised by Christian foster parents. At seventeen, his first novel Broken Earth was published but almost the entire print run was destroyed in the Blitz. He served in North Africa in the Second World War, and was captured following the fall of Tobruk. His experiences as a prisoner of war are recalled in Bitter Eden.
Tatamkhulu returned to South Africa in 1964, joining the African National Congress party in the fight against apartheid. He began writing again – in defiance of a legal prohibition following arrest for anti- apartheid activities – in his sixties, earning five major South African prizes and an All- Africa Citation for his poetry. Bitter Eden was first published when he was eighty- two. He died in December 2002, shortly after its publication.