Dr Deena Padayachee

Dr Deena Padayachee - Dr Deena Padayachee is a descendant of indentured sugar cane farm labourers. He was the first winner of the Nadine Gordimer Prize (Congress of South African Writers) in 1991. He is the only medical doctor to have won theOlive Schreiner Prize (English Academy of Southern Africa). That was in 1994. He was a winner of the Fay Goldie and the Quill Awards from the South African Writers' Circle for his prose. He received an Award from the Grahamstown Eisteddfod for Original Writing in 1985.

Over the years, our native of Durban has been invited to address literary gatherings in Durban (the UKZN Alumni Association and the South African Writers' Circle), Johannesburg (Arts Alive - 1994), Pretoria (Dept of Arts and Culture - 2006), Mysore, Trondheim, the British Consulate in Mauritius, the Mauritian Writer's Association, the Teacher's College of Mauritius, the University of Durban Westville, the University of Tuebingen, the University of Copenhagen, and the State University of Louisiana on his contribution to South Africa's literary works.

This Natal University graduate has been anthologised in a host of tomes, including The Omnibus of South African short stories, Reader's Digest's Best South African short stories, the University of Cambridge's Writing from South Africa and the World Anthology of Love Poetry.He has been published extensively in the USA, India, Canada, Denmark, the UK and Australia. His prose has been translated into Tamil and Hindi and his short stories have been dramatised for the stage and radio.

This South African's book of short stories,'What's Love got to do with it?' was prescribed for matrics in KZN in 2004/2005.

Our medical doctor wrote a monthly Column called 'Under the Skin' for the Sunday Times Extra till 2008.

He is Publication Relations Officer of the South African Writers' Circle, an executive member of the Live Poets' Society and a Rotarian.