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My Story

I'm a writer, author and visual storyteller based in Cape Town, South Africa. After graduating from a psychology degree at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 2009, I shifted my professional focus to portrait and documentary photography, creating safe spaces for South African women to share their everyday struggles and stories. Boosted by the voices of  the women I photographed, I was able to explore my own relationship to issues of identity, gender based violence and the impact of infertility on a woman’s sense of self.

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In 2018 I invited victims of GBV to be photographed as a way of re-narrating their stories of abuse, and turned the lessons I learnt from that portrait series into a 2019 TEDx talk, which centred on survivor shame and its implications for the expression of vulnerability. I was accepted into UCT’s Creative Writing MA program in 2020 and graduated in 2022 with a distinction. My debut novel Glass Tower was published in 2023 - it won that year's Island Prize for debut fiction from Africa and was long listed for the 2024 Sunday Times Literary Fiction Award. Currently I'm working towards my masters in psychological research at UCT while writing my second novel and continuing to make images that spark joy and speak to my interests. 

Sarah Isaacs author portrait
Sarah Isaacs with the TEDx Women Cape Town team
Sarah Isaacs on a writers' panel at Open Book Fest 2023
Sarah Isaacs presenting at TEDx Women Cape Town
Sarah Isaacs on a writers' panel at Open Book Fest 2023

Get in touch

Need some more info on me or my work? Interested in price packages? Meaningful project you'd like to collaborate on? Drop me a mail or leave your details below and I'll get back to you.

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sarah@sarahisaacs.com

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