Michael Chapman is a Retired Professor, of the Durban University of Technology, in South Africa. He is also a Professor Emeritus and Fellow of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a Fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, and a Member of ASSAf.
A graduate of the University of London, UK, the University of Natal now the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and the University of South Africa (UNISA), he began his academic career in 1978 at the University of South Africa and, in 1984, was appointed as Professor of English at the then University of Natal. He served as Head of Department and, for 10 years, as the Dean of the Faculty of Human Sciences.
As an A-rated NRF researcher since 2003, Prof Chapman is the Sole Author of 5 books, he has Compiled and Edited 15 anthologies and has Published over 90 articles and chapters-in-books in accredited publications. His 500-page literary history, Southern African Literatures (1996; 2003), won the Bill Venter Award for Academic Writing and continues to be cited, both locally and internationally, as the landmark book on the literature of the southern African subcontinent.
A Recipient of the English Academy of Southern Africa Gold Medal, the 2018 recipient of the HSRC Medal for the Social Sciences and Humanities, and the SANLAM National Literary Award for South African English Poetry: A Modern Perspective. He has been awarded an A-NRF rating from 2013 to 2018.
