By surname

Marlene van Niekerk was born on 10 November 1954 near Caledon. She attended school in Riviersonderend and Stellenbosch, where she matriculated from Hoërskool Bloemhof. She studied Languages and Philosophy at Stellenbosch University and obtained a MA in 1978.

At university she wrote three plays for the lay theatre and in 1979 she moved to Germany to join theatres in Stuttgart and Mainz as an apprentice for directing. From 1980 to 1985 she continued her studies of philosophy in Holland, obtaining a Drs. On her return to South Africa, she lectured in Philosophy at the University of Zululand, and later at the University of South Africa. She then went on to be lecturer in Afrikaans and Dutch at the University of Witwatersrand.

Marlene van Niekerk published Agaat, her English translation of Triomf, which won the C.L. Engelbrecht Prize for literature, through Jonathan Ball Publishers. She is currently Professor at the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch at Stellenbosch University.