Gcina Mhlophe

has a PhD in writing and storytelling and is the founding director of the Gcinamasiko Arts & Heritage Trust. Her works have been translated into many languages, including all official South African languages and Braille. She has staged her plays in the US, UK and Greenland; her best known and most studied theatre text is Have You Seen Zandile? She recently self-published the book Our Storytelling Tree: A South African Storytellers Directory with the GAHT, archiving for the first time 38 of the storytellers currently active in South Africa. Dr Mhlophe has received numerous awards including the OBIE in 1987, the Multi Choice AFRICA Legend Storyteller Award and most recently the SAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2022, she was honoured by the Charlotte Manya-Maxeke Institute as one of the “Mothers of the Nation”.