Founding Member
Phoebe Gerwel
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Phoebe Gerwel, the widow of Professor Jakes Gerwel, is the founder member of the Jakes Gerwel Foundation. She obtained her degree in Social Work at the University of the Western Cape. Due to the executive role Professor Gerwel played in the establishment of the Suidoosterfees, Phoebe has been honoured as the Patron of the Suidoosterfees.
Phoebe has donated Paulet House, the beloved retreat in KwaNojoli (Somerset East) of her husband Professor Jakes Gerwel, to the Jakes Gerwel Foundation. She has an active role in the Suidoosterfees, the Jakes Gerwel Family Trust and the Jakes Gerwel Foundation. |
Board of Trustees
Brian Figaji (Chairperson)
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Prof Brian Figaji, Chairperson of the Jakes Gerwel Foundation, is a well-known businessman, academic and social activist in South Africa. He has a long history with the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) having served as Vice-Chancellor of Peninsula Technikon from 1995 to 2004, guiding the university before its merger into the newly formed CPUT in 2005. He was also appointed as the new chancellor of CPUT in 2025. |
Mustaq Enus-Brey
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Mustaq Brey is CEO of Brimstone Investment Corporation, a company he co-founded in 1995. With his vast business and governance experience Mustaq currently serves as non-executive chairman of Oceana Group Ltd and chairman of International Frontier Technologies SOC Ltd. He serves as a director on the boards of Equites Property Fund, reinsurer AON Re SA and property group FPG Property Fund. Mustaq is a trustee of The Mandela Rhodes Foundation. He serves as a trustee of the Jakes Gerwel Foundation and is the chairman of the Groote Schuur Hospital Trust. He has been integral to the startup of many NGO’s and is the founder of the Saabri & Ashrafi Relief Fund. |
Annari van der Merwe
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Annari van der Merwe started her publishing career as head of the department of children’s and youth literature at Tafelberg Publishers in 1978 and stepped down as director of Random House South Africa in 2008. She would break ground by establishing Kwela Books for Naspers and by founding the imprint Umuzi for Random House. She also lectured from 1978 to the mid-1980s in the Afrikaans Department of the University of the Western Cape.
Annari is now a full-time painter. |
Mfundo Nkuhlu
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Mfundo Nkuhlu served as managing director at Nedbank Africa, before becoming the chief operating officer and executive director at the Nedbank Group Limited and at Nedbank Corporate Bank in 2015.
Prior to his involvement at Nedbank, Mfundo was the general manager of strategy and planning at the South African Revenue Services (SARS) and was responsible for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) during his service in the Department of Trade and Industry. Mfundo is the author of many articles on economic relations as well as on economic integration in Southern Africa. |
Wilmot James
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Wilmot James is respected worldwide as an intellectual leader on the forefront of planetary threat and pandemic response, biosecurity and biotechnology governance, public and global health as well as the non-proliferation of nuclear arms. He holds the position of Professor of Practice in Health Policy, Services and Practice at Brown University and is a senior advisor for pandemics and global health security at their School of Public Health. At the same time, he holds an honorary professorship in public health at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).
He is also the author and editor of an impressive list of articles and books, including Vital signs: Health security in South Africa (2020) and Nelson Mandela in his own words (2003). |
Goolam Aboobaker
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Goolam Aboobaker worked as a medical physicist before becoming special assistant to Jakes Gerwel at the University of the Western Cape in 1988. He was appointed Director of Cabinet Research in the late President Nelson Mandela’s office in 1995 and in 1997 Chief Director of Economic Development in the policy unit of the office of the deputy president. After his tenure as the senior advisor at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Goolam was appointed Deputy Director-General in the Ministry of Finance.
Goolam was a founding member of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Durban and was also involved in the launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF). Goolam’s involvement with the development agency Kagiso Trust stretches back to 1987. |
Executive Director
Theo Kemp
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Theo Kemp obtained his master’s degree in creative writing at Stellenbosch University. He has been involved with various projects in the arts before his role as, among others, project manager of the Woordfees, advertising coordinator at NB Publishers, programme manager at the KKNK as well as at the Vrystaat Literature Festival and as executive director of the Breytenbach Centre in Wellington.
Theo is also the author of three novels, Skool, Strafjaart and Klein Konings. |
Bosberg Book Writing Mentors
Fourie Botha
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After twenty years spent behind an editor’s desk in publisher offices, and two years as a literary agent, Fourie Botha now works as a freelance editor and editorial consultant.
Fourie himself is also a poet and has published three collections of poetry, Donkerkamer, Krap uit die see, and Kolam. His debut collection was nominated for the Ingrid Jonker prize. |
Angela Briggs
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Angela Briggs has worked in the publishing industry for 25 years. Besides freelancing as writer and editor, she also has experience of the full-time side of publishing.
She is also currently busy with her own writing project in the form of a blog, where she brings her love of South African books together with another passion of hers: art. |
Sifiso Mzobe
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Sifiso Mzobe is a celebrated South African author from Umlazi township in Durban. His debut novel, Young Blood, earned widespread acclaim and won several prestigious awards, including the 2011 Herman Charles Bosman Award and the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. His second book, Searching for Simphiwe, is a collection of short stories rooted in the life and rhythms of Umlazi.
Alongside his literary work, Mzobe continues to contribute as a journalist for a community newspaper. |
Suzette Kotzé-Myburgh
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Suzette Kotzé-Myburgh has been working in publishing since 1990. Besides text editing, Suzette has also made her mark in manuscript assessment and development, translation, proofreading, project management, self-publications, book and film reviews (LitNet, Die Burger, kykNET’s Dagbreek) as well as interviewing writers (RSG’s Skrywers en Boeke). She also acts as mentor for text editors and as presenter at editing workshops.
She is the co-compiler of Nuwe Kinderverseboek, Rympies vir Pikkies en Peuters, Rympies vir Kleintjies en Kleuters, Nuwe Stories 1, 2 & 3 and the US Woordfeesbundels from 2016 to 2019. |
Longhope TV Writing Mentor
Tina Kruger
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Tina Kruger has experience in all aspects of television, from acting, directing and production through to screenwriting. She has supervised the development, production, broadcasting and distribution of over thirty local television series, twenty feature films, sixty short films and four international co-productions. These include the films Vir die Voëls and Leading Lady as well as the TV series Getroud met Rugby and Sterlopers.
Tina takes pleasure in mentoring young filmmakers, has a thorough understanding of the local market and lives for telling heartfelt, powerful and authentic South African stories that cross boundaries. (Tina Kurger is also involved in the X-Wild Project.) |
NATi Rising Stars Mentors
Rafiek Mammon
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Fafiek Mammon is a celebrated, award-winning playwright and director. His first play, ‘Seashells’ received a Standard Bank Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival (NAF) in Grahamstown in 2012. His second play, ‘The Garage Sale’ ran to critical acclaim as the opening production of Artscape’s 10th annual Festival of New Writing in 2014. He directed the play ‘Syria?’ which also won a Standard Bank Ovation Award in 2017 at the NAF in Grahamstown.
He is presently a freelance lecturer, playwright, theatre maker, Arts Festival judge, editor, Arts journalist and columnist. |
Oscar Petersen
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Oscar Petersen’s career spans over more than 30 years. Although trained as an actor at the University of Cape Town, Oscar’s abilities encompass teaching, writing and dancing. His stage successes Meet Joe Barber, Joe Barber and Boeta Gamat Too, Joe Barber 4 The People, Joe Barber 5 School Cuts and Suip! have put him firmly on the map as one of Cape Town’s leading writing and performing talents.
Oscar has also worked as a teacher at the Drama Department at the University of Cape Town and at Stellenbosch University. |
X-Wild Project
Beaunella Khumalo
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Beaunella Khumalo holds a BA Honours in Film and Television Studies with experience across multiple productions such as Cobrizi, Miss SA, and the SAFTAs. She has worked across various departments including writing, producing, wardrobe, art direction, casting, and script continuity, but ultimately decided to focus on developing her skills in producing and scriptwriting.
Khumalo enjoys working across different mediums and challenging herself with roles outside her comfort zone, including videography and editing. Creativity is central to who she is; Beaunella Khumalo is driven by a continuous desire to learn, grow, and refine her craft. |
Blue Crane Book Project
Nompumelelo Sokoyi
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Nompumelelo Sandra Sokoyi was born in Pearston and matriculated at the Imizamoyethu Secondary School in George. Nompumelelo is a motivational speaker, a leader in her community and church and she is involved in many community development projects. She has a passion for traditional and ballroom dancing and loves the world of drama and storytelling. |
KwaNojoli Research Project
Mphuthumi Ntabeni
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Mphuthumi Ntabeni is a writer and political commentator who lives in Cape Town. His debut novel, The Broken River Tent, was published in 2019 and won the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize. His second novel, The Wanderers, was published in 2021.
He is the main researcher of the KwaNojoli Research Project, presented in partnership with the KwaNojoli Museum. |
Archivist
André Landman
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André Landman became an archivist quite by accident about two decades ago. He cut his teeth in the secretive world of archive processing and management at the South African History Archives (SAHA) and at Historical Papers of Wits University before joining the Manuscripts and Archives Department (now Special Collections) of UCT Libraries in January 2007 up until his early retirement in October 2018. He obtained an honours degree in archival science at Unisa and recently completed his master’s degree in history at UWC. |
Paulet House Chef
Gilbert van Zyl
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Gilbert van Zyl is the chef who treats our writers with his love for food, in abundance. Gilbert hails from Velddrif on the West Coast, but worked for years at Queen’s College in Queenstown, before he moved to KwaNojoli (Somerset East). Except for his involvement with the Foundation, he owns his own catering business. |