Arja Salafranca

Arja Salafranca is an award-winning author. She has been a successful writer and journalist for over 20 years.

 She was the lifestyle and arts editor on The Sunday Independent from 2003 to 2016. In her role as editor she contributed travel articles, theatre, book and film reviews as well as profile interviews. She encouraged the submission of a wide genre of work, from traditional journalism to ground-breaking personal and travel essays. A number of writers won awards for their non-fiction under her editorship. A particular fan of creative non-fiction, she has encouraged writers to incorporate some of these techniques into their writing.

She has published three collections of poetry. A Life Stripped of Illusions, The Fire in which we Burn and Beyond Touch. A Life Stripped of Illusions received the Sanlam Award for poetry, and  Beyond Touch was a co-winner in the poetry category of the South African Literary Awards in 2016. 

Her fiction has been published in local and international journals and anthologies, as well as online. Her debut collection of short fiction, The Thin Line, was published in 2010 (Modjaji Books) and short-listed for the Wole Soyinka Award. She has also edited two anthologies, Glass Jars Among Trees and The Edge of Things. Arja has also participated in a number of writer’s conferences.

She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Wits University.