RICHARD CONYNGHAM is the author, creative director and researcher behind All Rise. He is a Pietermaritzburg-born writer who lives in Mexico City. After graduating from the universities of Cape Town and Cambridge, he worked for South African civil-society organizations Equal Education, The Bookery, and Ndifuna Ukwazi, the London publisher Slightly Foxed, and the edtech organization MakeTomorrow. In 2016, Richard collaborated with the Trantraal Brothers to create Safety, Justice and People’s Power, an illustrated companion to the O’Regan-Pikoli Commission of Inquiry into policing in Khayelitsha.

SAAID RAHBEENI lives in Maitland, Cape Town. A freelance illustrator with decades of experience, he previously worked for the Educational Support Services Trust, Jincom, Strika Entertainment, and MTE Studios. His drawings appear in a range of school textbooks published by Pearson, Pan Macmillan, and Oxford University Press, among others, and he has also contributed to the Our Story series by South African Heritage Publishers. Saaid illustrated Chapter 1, ‘Until the Ship Sails’.

THE TRANTRAAL BROTHERS, André and Nathan, are a sibling-illustrator duo who grew up in the Cape Town township of Mitchells Plain before moving to Bishop Lavis. They have published numerous cartoons and graphic works including Coloureds (2010) and Crossroads (2014–2020, written by Koni Benson). Independently, André has written and illustrated the children’s book series, Keegan and Samier. Nathan has published three poetry collections in Kaaps—earning him numerous awards including the 2013 Ingrid Jonker Prize and the 2020 SALA Poetry Award—as well as a collection of his columns as published in the Afrikaans newspaper, Rapport. The Trantraal Brothers illustrated Chapter 2, ‘In the Shadow of a High Stone Wall’.

LIZ CLARKE lives in Cape Town, where she works as an illustrator. She has contributed to the genre of graphic history internationally, and her work is featured in seven books published by Oxford University Press USA—including Witness to the Age of Revolution (written by Charles F. Walker), which won the Association of American Publishers PROSE Award for Nonfiction Graphic Novels, and Abina and the Important Men (written by Trevor R. Getz), which won the American Historical Association’s James Harvey Robinson Prize. Liz illustrated Chapter 3, ‘Come Gallows Grim’.

DADA KHANYISA is an Umzimkhulu-born, Johannesburg-raised, Cape Town-based multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores the intersection of technology and contemporary social culture with respect to the Black experience. In 2016, they (Dada’s preferred pronoun) were awarded the Simon Gerson Prize, and a year later, completed a commission for a 35-metre mural on Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. In 2018, the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town presented Dada’s first solo exhibition, Bamb’iphone, followed up two years later by the Johannesburg show, Good Feelings. Dada illustrated Chapter 4, ‘The Widow of Marabastad’.

TUMI MAMABOLO hails from Polokwane in Limpopo province. He can’t remember a time when he wasn’t avidly drawing and painting, usually a comic or graphic novel from his own imagination. Since graduating with a degree in Information Design from the University of Pretoria in 2020, he has already won two Gold Loerie awards for his animation work. Still in his early twenties, Tumi is the youngest of the All Rise contributors, having illustrated Chapter 5, ‘A House Divided’.

MARK MODIMOLA was born in Pretoria of Sotho-Tsonga parentage. Originally a graphic designer, he studied at the University of Pretoria and later pursued a Fulbright Scholarship in the United States before returning to South Africa determined to illustrate full-time. Mark is a prolific and versatile creator, with a portfolio that explores African identity and spirituality, often through the cultural aesthetic of Afrofuturism. He illustrated Chapter 6, ‘Here I Cross to the Other Side’, honouring and drawing inspiration from his Sotho migrant ancestry.