Darrel Bristow-Bovey was born in Durban in the 1970s and lost his father when he was twelve. He studied English literature under J.M. Coetzee and André P. Brink at the University of Cape Town, and three years after leaving university set himself up a as a freelance writer with weekly columns in The Sunday Independent, Business Day and Cape Times, as well as several monthly columns.

He won the Mondi prize for best South African columnist four years in succession. In 2002 he was a prize-winner at the SAB Sportswriter of the Year Awards, and he has also been a prize-winner in the Africa-Geographic Travel Writing Competition for the past three years running.

His first book, I Moved Your Cheese, was translated into four languages and sold all around the world, most notably Brazil (in Portuguese translation) and India, where it topped the English best-seller lists for several months. His second book, The Naked Bachelor, was a chart-topper in Singapore.

In 2005 Darrel switched to screenwriting, having written extensively for SABC3’s Hard Copy and The Lab. He also co-wrote a comedy show with comic John Vlismas.

SuperZero is Darrel’s first full-length novel for young readers, and he says: “Writing for children is a lot more difficult than writing for adults, and more satisfying if you get it right, because young readers have far firmer (and I think far more admirable) ideas about what’s important when they read than we adults do.”