Christiaan Johan Barnard (aka Chris Barnard) is a South African author born July 15, 1939. Well known for penning various Afrikaans novels, novellas, columns, youth novels, short stories, plays, radio dramas, film scripts and television dramas.
Barnard was born in Mataffin in the Nelspruit district of South Africa, and matriculated at Nelspruit High in 1957. He majored in Afrikaans-Nederlands and History of Art at the University of Pretoria.
In the 1960s he and several other authors were notable figures in the Afrikaans literary movement known as Die Sestigers ("The Sixty-ers"). These writers sought to use Afrikaans as a language to speak against the apartheid government, and also to bring into Afrikaans literature the influence of contemporary English and French trends.
During 1962 Barnard married his first wife, Anette, and together they produced three sons; Johan, Stephan and Tian. After divorcing his first wife in 1978, he weds his second wife, Katinka Heyns. His fourth son, Simon, is born out of this marriage.
Barnard's second novel, Mahala, is considered an Afrikaans classic.
