South African-born Henrik Klijn has been writing since
childhood, when his mother handed him a stack of notebooks to fill with his stories. Years later, she admitted it had more to do with keeping him quiet "because everyone needs a break, now and then."
As a writer, he has contributed to various outlets, including Sourced Fact Media, Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, The Big Issue, and considerable Afrikaans—his home language—publications.
Henrik is pursuing postgraduate studies in journalism and sociocultural anthropology at Harvard. His academic work focuses on storytelling as a coping mechanism in contexts of displacement, with particular attention to the |Xam people of South Africa. He examines how oral histories told in the face of cultural extinction at the end of the 19th century functioned as both collective memory and acts of preservation.
In his spare time, he attends music events, ranging from classical to jazz and electronica. Henrik is an avid cook and a voracious reader who tries never to complain about Chicago winters, a city he has called home since 2017.
