Margie Orford

Margie Orford is a writer, teacher and activist. Her most recent novel is The Eye of the Beholder, a literary thriller published by Canongate in 2022. Her forthcoming novel, Common Purpose, will be out in 2027.

Margie’s Clare Hart novels – a literary crime series set in South Africa – have been translated into more than ten languages. They include Like Clockwork (2006), Blood Rose (2006), Gallows Hill (2009), Daddy’s Girl (2011), and Water Music (2013). They have led to her being described as the ‘queen of South African crime-thriller writers.’

Margie’s critically acclaimed memoir Love and Fury was published by Jonathan Ball Publishers in 2024.

Margie is an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford, the president emerita of Pen South Africa, an Ambassador for PEN International, as well as serving on the Advisory Board of the Johannesburg Review of Books.

Born in England to South African parents, she has lived in Namibia and South Africa, and now lives in London.