CHRIS VAN WYK was a multiple award-winning writer of poetry, books for children and teenagers, short stories, and novels. Van Wyk received critical acclaim for his poem, "In Detention," on the suspicious deaths that befell South African political prisoners during Apartheid, as well as his abridgement of Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom for children. He received multiple awards for his contributions to the South African literary space, including the Sanlam Literary Award, the Olive Schreiner Prize, and the Maskew Miller Longman Literature Award.