Reneilwe Malatji was born in Modjadji Village in 1968. She grew up in Turfloop Township, in northern part of South Africa. She grew up in a home where her father was an academic and her mother was a school teacher. She trained as a teacher and worked as a subject specialist and advisor to provincial education departments. She has recently completed a post-graduate diploma in Journalism and an MA in Creative Writing at Rhodes University. She is currently working on a doctorate at the University of the Western Cape. Love Interrupted her best-selling collection of short stories won two awards, the Nadine Gordimer SALA award in 2015, and the Aidoo-Snyder Award in the US.