Above all I measure the world with words. I have a pride in the craft, which is to say I aspire to be artistic, eloquent and truthful, even though the trade needs artifice, plain-speaking and self-opinion.

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Aged eight I set out to write an autobiography. Beyond asserting that I was a writer I had, as one would expect, little more to add. Afterwards I came across a paragraph in Time magazine that foreshadowed real life. It was a first-hand account of a wildfire. The writer’s uninsured home had been razed to the ground. There was a photograph of him, back-turned, amidst the gutting of the previous evening. He quoted a Japanese poet:

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Since my house burned down
I now own a better view
of the rising moon

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Great language sustains us. That’s what the man pared down to a seventeenth-century Edo period poem was saying. My primary school self couldn’t fully grasp the pathos, but I perceived its power.

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I was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, where I obtained an MFA (Film) degree from the University of Cape Town. As an undergraduate I majored in philosophy and sociology, with an honours degree in the latter.

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I have been an arts journalist for the Cape Times and a political columnist for Rolling Stone SA. Bylines include the Guardian. I’ve directed a feature length documentary, episodes of a Nollywood television series, and several short films that have been screened at, amongst other festivals, the AVIFF Cannes Art Film Festival. I’ve also been a championship winning under-17 soccer coach, which in its way requires a judicious turn of phrase.

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I have lived in Canada, Ireland, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

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If you require images and words no matter how quixotic your cause — even more so for it — I offer my services. I’m at my best when the discussion calls for conceptual thinking and creativity. I’m a dogged researcher who relishes the back and forth of discovery. I advocate leaving pessimism for better days.