By surname

Beverley Naidoo was born in Johannesburg where she went to Parktown Convent and the University of Witwatersrand. She was detained under ‘90-days’ in 1964 before continuing her education at the University of York, England. She holds a Ph.D for research into British teenagers’ responses to literature and racism, published as Through Whose Eyes?

Beverley began writing in exile. Her first two books were banned in South Africa until 1991. She has written novels, short stories, poetry and plays. Her awards include the Carnegie Medal for The Other Side of Truth and honorary degrees for a body of work. Beverley and illustrator Piet Grobler (co-creators of a South African Aesop’s Fables) were the 2008 South African nominees for the Hans Christian Andersen Award.

In Burn My Heart, Beverley explored in fiction the colonial world into which her younger cousin Neil Aggett was born in Kenya during the Mau Mau resistance. Death of an Idealist: In search of Neil Aggett is a fully-referenced biography exploring his transformation into the militant yet gentle doctor-cum-union activist who became the 51st, and only white, detainee to die in security police custody.

Extras