Mary Watson

Mary Watson is a South African-born author who grew up in Cape Town during the apartheid years and now lives in Ireland. She won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2006 and appeared on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of influential writers. Blood to Poison is a young adult novel about a seventeen-year-old girl cursed with a sinister family heirloom — a curse passed through the bloodline for centuries, originating with Hella, an enslaved woman in Cape Town. Set in South Africa, the novel blends magical realism with themes of identity, family, and the legacy of enslavement. Her audiobooks and books offer listeners and readers magical, richly imagined fiction that draws on South African history — young adult storytelling with real depth and power.