Johann de Lange (born 22 December 1959 in Pretoria, South Africa) is an Afrikaans poet, short story writer and critic. He is renowned for being one of the foremost gay writers in Afrikaans, his most controversial book being Nagsweet.

He debuted in 1982 with a collection of poetry entitled Akwarelle van die dors ("Aquarelles of thirst") for which he was awarded the Ingrid Jonker prize in 1983. This was followed by Waterwoestyn ("Water desert") in 1984, Snel grys fantoom ("Quick grey phantom") in 1986, Wordende naak ("Changing") in 1988 which was awarded the Rapport Prize for Poetry, Nagsweet ("Nightsweat") in 1990, Vleiswond ("Flesh wound") in 1993 and Wat sag is vergaan ("That which is soft perishes") in 1995.

In 1996 he publishes his first collection of short stories entitled Vreemder as fiksie ("Stranger than fiction"), followed by Tweede natuur ("Second nature") in 2000.

In 1997 he edited an anthology of short stories entitled Soort soek soort ("Birds of a feather"), covering 100 years of gay fiction in Afrikaans, and in 1998 an anthology of Afrikaans erotic poetry in collaboration with Antjie Krog entitled Die dye trek die dye aan ("Thighs attract thighs").

He was also awarded the Pankrator prize for his poem "Skerpskutter" in an international poetry competition organised by UNESCO, as well as an Avanti award for his documentary script on the life of Ingrid Jonker Verdrinkte hande ("Drowning hands”).

He has translated poetry by Wilma Stockenström, Sheila Cussons, Antjie Krog, Lucas Malan & Ernst van Heerden amongst others into English. A great number of these translations has since been published in local and overseas collections and anthologies like The Penguin book of Southern African Verse (1989), Breaking the silence — a century of South African women’s poetry (1990), Soho Square: a collection of new writing from Africa (1992), The heart in exile: South African poetry in English 1990-1995 (1996) and The lava of this land: South African Poetry 1960-1996 (1997).

A selection of his translations of Wilma Stockenström’s poetry was published as The wisdom of water in 2007.