Craig Higginson

Craig is a novelist, playwright, theatre director and university lecturer. Previous fiction includes Embodied Laughter (Pan Macmillan) and The Hill (Jacana). His next two novels, Last Summer and The Landscape Painter, will be published by Picador Africa in February 2010 and 2011 respectively. Craig’s plays include Dream of the Dog (Grahamstown Main; Market Theatre; Hilton Festival) and The Girl in the Yellow Dress (for production in 2010). He also co-wrote Truth in Translation and Ten Bush (both of which have travelled locally and internationally), adapted Laughter in the Dark (RSC, BBC R3) and Lord of the Flies (Market Theatre) and co-adapted The Jungle Book and Brer Rabbit (both Market Theatre). Craig had directed a range of productions in the United Kingdom and South Africa. Highlights include Laughter in the Dark (RSC, co-director), Edward III (RSC, staged reading), Blood Wedding (Pegasus Theatre, Oxford), Grimm Tales (Market Theatre), Dream of the Dog (Hilton Festival and SAFM), The Perfect Circle (which he wrote and directed for Wits students) and The Jungle Book (Market Theatre).

His writing and directing have been nominated for and won several awards in South Africa and the United Kingdom, including winning the Sony Gold Award for Best Radio Drama in the UK for Laughter in the Dark (2005) As a Wits graduate, Craig won the Art’s Faculty Silver Medal. Dream of the Dog is currently a university set work in South Africa and the US and has been published by Wits University Press. As a dramaturge, Craig has worked with leading writers in South Africa and England. He has also worked extensively as a freelance editor of fiction and non-fiction. The directors he has assisted include Barney Simon, Tim Supple, Michael Attenborough and David Farr. Craig is the Literary Manager at the Market Theatre. He teaches writing at Wits. His writing is represented by PFD literary agency in London. In 2010, he will begin his fifth novel as part of his PhD in Creative Writing at Wits.