Fred Khumalo is the author of 19 books, which include novels, short story collections, journalism and works of biography. His famous Dancing the Death Drill has been translated into German, Setswana and isiZulu – with more translations into other local languages in the pipeline. The stage adaptation of the book was performed to full houses for one full month (October 2025) at Joburg Theatre, featuring some of the country’s top actors including Clint Brank, and with musical direction by Msaki. He has won numerous honours, including the European Union Literary Awar and the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences Award. A journalist by training, he writes primarily in English but has also published two books in his mother tongue, Zulu.
He holds an MA Creative Writing from Wits University, is a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a Fellow of the Academy of the Arts of the World (Cologne, Germany), a Fellow of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, a Fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study.
