The Mask under the Skin

Petra Langa grew up in Germany and immigrated to South Africa in 1993 when she was 25. There she pursued an academic career at the University of KwaZulu-Natal before accompanying her husband on diplomatic postings first to Moscow and then to Beijing. Her fiction reflects personal transitions from a village childhood on the German Baltic coast to experiencing life on the brink of democracy in South Africa and as a diplomatic spouse overseas. Her publications include her thesis on German migration literature and intercultural learning in South Africa (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010) and two novels: A Year in the Village (Authorhouse, 2015) and Measures of Freedom (America Star Books, 2017). She now lives in Pretoria, South Africa.