Simon van Schalkwyk is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Studies at Wits University and is academic editor for The Johannesburg Review of Books. He is a recipient of The Philip Stein Award for Poetry and the Mamphela Ramphele scholarship. He has BA Hons and PhD degrees in English literature from the University of Cape Town and an MA in Modern and Contemporary Poetry from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. He has been an active presence in South Africa’s literary scene, contributing occasional essays, critical reviews of novels and poetry to Aerodrome, The Conversation and The Johannesburg Review of Books, and conducting interviews for The Johannesburg Review of Books with writers and scholars. His poetry has appeared in New Contrast, The Johannesburg Review of Books and Imago. He is the author of two poetry collections, Transcontinental Delay and Zero Summer, and the academic monograph Robert Lowell’s Imitations and the Cold War: Containment, Leakage, Anarchy.