S imon Luyikumu Kikamba writing under the name Simão Kikamba, was born on 24 May 1966 in Mpemba, Angola, to a Congolese father and Angolan mother. He immigrated with his parents to the DRC as a child, where he later earned a B-Ed in English and African Culture and taught English.

In 1992, he returned to Angola and worked at the Namibian Embassy in Luanda. Following his abduction by unidentified security forces in 1994, he fled to South Africa with his wife and young child, spending 16 years in exile. He returned to Angola in 2010, where he taught literary studies at Agostinho Neto State University.

Kikamba holds a master’s degree cum laude in Theory of Literature from UNISA and is pursuing a PhD. He is the award-winning author of Going Home (2005), based on the experiences of a Black immigrant in South Africa, and The Briefcase, a collection of short stories published by XarraBooks. He currently lives and works in Kinshasa, DRC.