Ashraf Jamal is a cultural analyst currently based in the Faculty of Design & Informatics at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. He has taught in the fields of world literature, postcoloniality, media studies, and visual culture at the Universities of Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Natal, Rhodes, Malaya (Malaysia), and Eastern Mediterranean (N. Cyprus). He is the author of Predicaments of Culture in South Africa, the co-author of Art in South Africa: the Future-Present, and the co-editor of Indian Ocean Studies: Social, Cultural, and Political Perspectives. He was shortlisted for the MNET Prize for his novel about the Cape Town art scene, Love Themes for the Wilderness. He won the Sanlam Prize for the title story of his collection of short fiction, The Shades.