Kagiso Lesego Molope

Kagiso Lesego Molope is a South African Canadian novelist and playwright. Born and raised in South Africa, Kagiso Lesego Molope graduated from the University of Cape Town and moved to Canada at age 21. She was the first Black author to win the Percy FitzPatrick Award. She was also the first Black novelist to win the Ottawa Book Award in 2019. Her first Novel, Dancing in the Dust, was the first novel by an indigenous South African author to be on the IBBY List. McClelland & Stewart has acquired world rights to her fifth novel We Inherit the Fire.

Works

 * Dancing in the Dust, Mawenzi House, 2002
 * The Mending Season, Oxford University Press, 2005
 * This Book Betrays My Brother, Mawenzi House, 2018
 * Such a Lonely Lovely Road, Mawenzi House, 2018
 * Maya Angelou: Black Woman Rising, Play. Nordic Black Theatre, 2019-2023

Prize and Awards

 * 2014 Winner, Percy FitzPatrick Award (for This Book Betrays My Brother)
 * 2019 Winner, Ottawa Book Award (for This Book Betrays My Brother)
 * 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 Nominee, Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award