[1] Chris Mann was born in Port Elizabeth in 1948 and went to Diocesan College (Bishops) in Rondebosch, Cape Town.
[3] From 1977 to 1980 he held a lecturer post in the English Department at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa.
From 1980 to 1995 he worked with an NGO, The Valley Trust[4] at KwaNyuswa outside Durban, where he received his isiZulu nickname, Zithulele, meaning "the quiet one.
[5] He was founder and convenor of Wordfest, a national multilingual festival of South African languages and literature with a developmental emphasis.
He performed his work at festivals, schools, churches, universities and conferences in South Africa.