Isobel Dixon was born in Mthatha and grew up in Graaff-Reinet. She now works in publishing in London, returning frequently to her family home in the Great Karoo. She won the Sanlam Prize in 2000 for the unpublished manuscript of her debut collection, Weather Eye. Published by Carapace Poets in 2001, Weather Eye was awarded the Olive Schreiner Prize in 2004. Her fifth collection, A Whistling of Birds (with illustrations by Douglas Robertson), is published by Human & Rousseau. A Whistling of Birds pays close and striking attention to our threatened natural world, with echoes and glimpses from other writers and artists, including D.H. Lawrence, Elizabeth Bishop, Albert Adams and Georgia O’Keeffe. Her further collections are A Fold in the Map, Bearings and The Tempest Prognosticator, which J.M. Coetzee described as ‘a virtuoso collection’. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies around the world and have been translated into several languages. www.isobeldixon.com
Image by Naomi Woddis