Craig Higginson

Craig Higginson was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1971 (formerly Salisbury, Rhodesia). Due to the escalating situation during the Rhodesian Bush War, he moved with his mother and sister to Johannesburg in 1976, the year of the Soweto Uprisings. At the age of ten, he attended boarding school in KwaZulu-Natal at Clifton Nottingham Road and Michaelhouse. The Midlands landscape would later feature strongly in his novels and plays. In 1990, in the weeks that saw the release of Nelson Mandela from jail and the unbanning of the African National Congress, Higginson went to the University of the Witwatersrand to study Fine Art, but later moved to a BA (Honors) in English and European Literature. In 1995, he worked as assistant to the director Barney Simon at the Market Theatre. Following Simon's death, he moved to England, where he would remain for ten years. There he worked at the Young Vic Theatre with Tim Supple and at the Royal Shakespeare Company with Michael Attenborough. He was also a theatre critic for some years at Time Out magazine. He published his first novel, Embodied Laughter, at the age of twenty-six in South Africa and England and adapted Laughter in the Dark for the Royal Shakespeare Company and BBC Radio 3 shortly afterwards. He returned to live and work in South Africa in 2004. Since then Higginson has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand and been the Literary Manager of the Market Theatre. He has published several novels and plays and worked extensively in South African television as a writer. He has a PhD in Creative Writing and is married to the actress Leila Henriques. They live in Johannesburg