KEN BARRIS lives in Cape Town and teaches at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. He has published several novels, a collection of short stories and of poetry. His short stories and poems have appeared in many anthologies. He won the Ingrid Jonker Prize for poetry, the Vita Award for a collection of short fiction, and the M-Net Book Prize for his first novel, The Jailer's Book. In 2003 he was shortlisted for the Caine Prize.