INGRID WINTERBACH was born in Johannesburg and studied at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Stellenbosch. In the years following her studies, she was a teacher, a journalist at Die Burger, and for 13 years a lecturer in the Fine Arts Department of the University of Stellenbosch. After that, Ingrid was also a lecturer in Afrikaans and Dutch at the University of Natal. She has been writing and painting full time since 2002. Her first novel, Klaaglied vir Koos, was published in 1984 under the alias Lettie Viljoen. She published four more books under this name. In 1994 she