Isla Morley

Isla Morley grew up in South Africa during apartheid, the child of a British father and fourth-generation South African mother. During the countrys State of Emergency, she graduated from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth with a degree in English Literature. By 1994 she was one of the youngest magazine editors in South Africa, but left career, country and kin when she married an American and moved to California. For more than a decade she pursued a career in non-profit work, focusing on the needs of women and children. Her debut novel, Come Sunday, was awarded the 2009 Kafka Prize for Fiction, and was a finalist for the Commonwealth Prize.

She has lived in some of the most culturally diverse places of the world, including Johannesburg, London and Honolulu. Now in the Los Angeles area, she shares a home with her husband, daughter, a cat, two dogs and three tortoises.