Michiel Heyns attended school in South Africa, in Thaba Nchu, Kimberley, and Grahamstown, and studied at the universities of Stellenbosch (B.Comm., MA, D. Litt.) and Cambridge (MA). He served as professor of English at Stellenbosch University from 1987 until 2002, when he took early retirement to be a full-time author. He lives in Somerset West, South Africa, and is the author of four novels: The Children's Day, The Reluctant Passenger, The Typewriter's Tale, and Bodies Politic. A fifth, Lost Ground, is at present on submission. He is the translator of Marlene van Niekerk's Agaat (published in the U.S. by Tin House Books, 2010), which won South Africa's top award, the Sunday Times Fiction prize, the first translated work ever to win.