Ernst Havemann was born in 1918 on a farm in what was then Zululand, South Africa; his first language was Zulu. After serving with South African forces in the Middle East during the Second World War, he had a long career as a mining engineer, and he began writing after his retirement when he and his wife lived in Nelson, British Columbia. They now live in New Zealand. "Bloodsong" was a CBC Canadian Literary Awards prize winner in 1983 and "An Interview" in 1984; two other stories won prizes in 1985 and 1988. "Bloodsong" and "An Interview" appear in Bloodsong and Other Stories of South Africa (1987).