Stephen Symons

Stephen Symons was born in Cape Town in 1966. He has published poetry and short fiction in local and international journals, magazines and anthologies. Symons’s debut collection, Questions for the Sea (uHlanga, 2016), received an honourable mention for the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry and was shortlisted for the 2017 Ingrid Jonker Prize.

His unpublished collection Spioenkop was a semi-finalist for the Hudson Prize for Poetry (USA) in 2015. His second collection, Landscapes of Light and Loss (Dryad Press), was published in 2018, and his third collection, For Everything that is Pointless and Perfect (Karavan Press), in 2020. Small Souls: New & Collected Poems (Karavan Press) was published in 2022 and includes the winning poem of the 2021 The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Competition, “Small souls”. The collection was also longlisted for

the 2024 National Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences Awards and shortlisted for a 2024 South African Literary Award. AFTERBURN: War Stories, a collection of short stories related to war and the effects of human conflict, was published by Tattoo Press in 2023. His fifth collection, The Algebra of Insignificance, was published by Karavan Press in 2024, and longlisted for a 2025 National Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences Award.

His new collection of short stories, of salt, dust & love, was published by Karavan Press in 2025, to be followed by his debut novel, later in the year.

Symons holds a PhD in History (University of Pretoria) and an MA in Creative Writing (University of Cape Town). He lives with his family in Oranjezicht, Cape Town, where he runs a graphic design studio.

Host: Stuart Payne

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