Phillippa Yaa de Villiers was born on February 17, 1966 in Halfway House close to Johannesburg. She studied journalism in Grahamstown and theater in Paris. In the late 1990s she returned to university to earn a degree in dramatics arts, thereby combining her two passions, writing and performance. She also spend some time in Los Angeles, U.S.A., before she returned to settle in Johannesburg.
De Villiers makes her living by working for theatre, teaching and writing for stage and television. As a poet she has performed her poetry all over the world, f. e. in Adelaide, Havana, Birmingham, Durban, Stockholm, London, Berlin and Johannesburg.
The Yeoville winter evening
loves its people
skin to skin:
this seducing season that
...
I invited our president to tea. I said:
"I have issues with your take on identity
so bring your kneepads, it's going to be a bumpy ride.'
...
Only the desperate, and only a fool
Picks up hitchhikers, by day or by night;
This is the wisdom and this is the rule.
...