Sifiso Mzobe was born and bred in the Durban township of Umlazi, where he obtained his primary schooling and where he currently resides. After attending St Francis College, he studied Journalism at the Damelin Business Campus in Durban.

It was during a fruitful time in his work within the construction industry, that Mzobe declares the moment had come for him to finally “heed the call” of writing. With his earliest writing memory dating back to when he was just thirteen years old, Mzobe maintains that it was at this young age that the seed for his writing fervor was planted.

While doing Science subjects in high school, Mzobe would also read a lot of history books; a pastime that not only fed his interest and curiosity about the human condition, but also developed what he articulates as a “love affair with words”.

His debut novel, Young Blood, charts the life of 17 year old teenager who drops out of high school and joins a car hijacking syndicate. So raw was the rendition that Young Blood went on to win the prestigious Sunday Times Fiction Award and the Herman Charles Bosman Prize for best English Fiction in 2011. Mzobe also won the Best First Time Published Author Award at the 2011 South African Literary Awards. The book was also listed in the “Sunday Independent’s Top Ten Books Of 2010″. In 2012, Young Blood was optioned by Rogue Star Productions, makers of the movie, Spud.

Mzobe expresses his appreciation for the beauty of invention that is afforded by writing by observing: “It (writing) is beautiful for being a comfortable window to view a sometimes-uncomfortable world. It is an art-form that lets the artist start from a blank page, to then invent. I’m in love with it for that; this vision or delusion that in this world, you can still invent.”

Mzobe currently works for a community newspaper as a journalist.