Njabulo S. Ndebele is known principally for his collection of short stories Fools and Other Stories (1983), which won the 1984 Noma Award, and for his seminal contribution to literary debate in South Africa in the 1980s. Although his contribution has been relatively slight in volume, his influence on South African literature has been significant. This influence is due in large measure to his work's divergence from much of the politicized black fiction of the 1970s and 1980s. In many ways Ndebele's writing constitutes a return to a more traditional concern with narrative complexity and literary quality.

Njabulo Simakahle Ndebele was born in Western Native Township near Johannesburg on 4 July 1948. His father, Nimrod Ndebele, a Zulu, was a teacher at Madibane High School in Johannesburg who later became an inspector of schools; his mother, Regina Makhosazana Ndebele (née Tshabangu), a Swazi from neighboring Swaziland, had trained as a...