Lindie Koorts is a historian and postdoctoral fellow at the University of the Free State's Centre for Africa Studies. She holds an M.A. in Historical Studies from the University of Johannesburg and a D.Phil in History from the University of Stellenbosch. This book is the result of four years' research. During this time, she spent a year at the Institute of Biography at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands to hone her writing skills.