Marlene van Niekerk holds the Africa Chair for regioncommission Southern Africa. She is a South African author who is best known for her novels Triomf and Agaat, both translated into Dutch. Her graphic and controversial descriptions of a poor Afrikaner family in Johannesburg brought her to the forefront of a post-apartheid society, still struggling to…

Professor Rob Nixon holds the Rachel Carson Professorship in English and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. from ColumbiaUniversityand is the author of four books: London Calling. V. S. Naipaul, Postcolonial Mandarin (Oxford); Homelands, Harlem and Hollywood. South African Culture and the World Beyond (Routledge); Dreambirds: the Natural History of…