Mr Niq Mhlongo was born in 1973 in Soweto. He has a BA from Wits University, with majors in African Literature and Political Studies. His first novel, Dog Eat Dog, was published by Kwela in 2004 and was translated into Spanish under the title Perro Come Perro in 2006. This Spanish edition was awarded the Mar de Letras prize. His other novels are After Tears (Kwela 2007) and Way Back Home (Kwela 2013). He has also published two short story collections, titled Affluenza (Kwela 2016) and Soweto, Under the Apricot Tree (Kwela 2018). Mhlongo received the 2019 Herman Charles Bosman Prize for Soweto, Under the Apricot Tree.