Antjie Krog was born and grew up in the Free State. She became editor of the Afrikaans current-affairs magazine Die Suid-Afrikaan and later worked as a radio journalist covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, all the while writing extensively for newspapers and journals. She and her radio colleagues received the Pringle Award for excellence in journalism for their coverage of the Commission hearings, from which came the best known of her three non-fiction books, Country of My Skull.

She has won major awards in almost all the genres and media in which she has worked: poetry, non-fiction and translation. But, mainly, she has lived as a poet. Krog’s first volume of poetry was published when she was seven­teen years old and she has since released thirteen volumes of poetry and received among others the Eugène Marais Prize, the Hertzog Prize, the FNB Prize, the Protea Prize, and, for non-fiction, the Alan Paton Prize and the Olive Schreiner Award. She has also been a recipient of the Stockholm Award from the Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture and the Open Society Prize. She is married to architect John Samuel.