Biography

Leon de Kock grew up in Mayfair, Johannesburg. He is head of the School of Literature and Language Studies at Wits and holds degrees from the Universities of Johannesburg, Leeds and South Africa. He is a writer, translator and academic, and has worked as reporter, sub-editor and in the private sector. He has received the Pringle Prize for Poetry (1985), the FNB Vita/English Academy Prize for Poetry Translation (2000) and the SA Translators’ Award for Outstanding Translation (2000) for his translation of Marlene van Niekerk’s Triomf.

Leon's published work includes:   

• South Africa in the Global Imaginary, Unisa Press and Brill, with Louise Bethlehem and Sonja Laden   
• Identities: South African Short Stories, Juta-Gariep, (ed.)   
• Bloodsong: Poems, Snailpress   
• gone to the edges, Protea   
• Civilising Barbarians: Missionary Narrative and African Textual Response in Nineteenth-Century South Africa, Wits Press and Lovedale Press   
• The Heart in Exile: South African Poetry in English (Penguin) (ed.), with Ian Tromp   
• Verborge Skatte: Herman Charles Bosman in/oor Afrikaans, Human & Rousseau