A Song for Jamela

Niki Daly

Niki Daly was born in Cape Town in 1946. Always a keen musician, in 1970 he went to England to fulfil a recording and songwriting contract and work as a graphic designer/illustrator. He won a British Arts Council Illustration Award for The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Road (his first published work) in 1978. Since then, he has illustrated many stories of his own as well as those of other writers.

In 1980 he returned to South Africa where he worked as a teacher and freelance illustrator, and led the Graphic Design Department of Stellenbosch University until 1989. In 1988 he won a Parents Choice Award for his book, Not so Fast, Songololo. From 1989 to1992 he developed Songololo Books, a children’s book division of David Philip Publishers. During 1989-1990 Daly ran writing and illustration workshops which facilitated the work of other writer and illustrator teams. Many of these workshop projects, such as Charlie’s House, Somewhere in Africa and All the Magic in the World have been published internationally as picture books.