Dan Roodt

Dan Roodt was born in Springs, east of Johannesburg. He studied Afrikaans, French, Comparative Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, as well as Philosopy at the University of Paris VIII under the famous French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Jean-François Lyotard. He published a short novel and book of poetry at the age of 23. Since then he has written a total of 8 books, as well as numerous articles in the press and on the internet. He founded PRAAG, an NGO in South Africa, in 2000, as well as a publishing company by the same name. He is currently president of Pretoria PEN, affiliated to the international writers' organisation. Dan Roodt has also been active in the movement for racial and linguistic equality in South Africa and regularly protests against anti-minority violence in South Africa. According to prof. Jaap Steyn and Hennie van Coller of the Free State University in Bloemfontein, he has been one of the three most influential Afrikaans language activists of the twentieth century.