John Kani is a South African actor, director and playwright. He co-wrote Sizwe Banzi is Dead and The Island with Athol Fugard and Winston Ntshona in the early 1970s. Nothing but the Truth (2002), which was his debut as sole playwright, was first performed at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. Nothing but the Truth has been prescribed for many years for Grade 12 learners.

Zakes Mda has published 19 books which have been translated into several languages and has won the Amstel Playwright of the Year Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Sunday Times Literary Prize, the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award and the American Library Association Notable Book. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Ohio University, Director of the Southern African Multimedia AIDS Trust in Sophiatown, Johannesburg and a Patron of the Market Theatre in Johannesburg.