BIOGRAPHY
MARQ DE VILLIERS is a veteran journalist who has reported from many parts of the world, especially Africa and the former Soviet Union. He has also been editor, and then publisher, of Toronto Life magazine, Toronto, and editorial director of WHERE Magazines International, Los Angeles. De Villiers was born in South Africa and is a graduate of the University of Cape Town with a later graduate year at the London School of Economics. He holds an honorary degree from Dalhousie University and in 2010 was appointed to the Order of Canada. He lives in Eagle Head, on Nova Scotia’s south shore. He is the author of 14 books, most on African themes or natural history, but one on wine (The Heartbreak Grape) and one on the American revolutionary wars, Blood Traitors. Five of his books were co-authored with Sheila Hirtle. He has won several awards, including the Governor General’s Award for Non Fiction, the Evelyn Richardson Award (twice), South Africa’s Alan Paton Award, and was shortlisted for both the Julia Child and James Beard Awards. He has also written on contract for National Geographic Books (America’s Outdoors: Eastern Canada) and has ghosted three other titles, the “autobiographies” of Maurice Strong, who headed the 1992 world environmental summit in Rio; of Lawrencia “Bambi” Bembenek (written as she was about to get her murder conviction overturned); and of former theatre impresario and later felon Garth Drabinsky. His latest book is Hell and Damnation: A Sinner’s Guide to Eternal Torment, published by University of Regina Press in 2019.