Born in South Africa, John Mateer lives in Australia. His books have appeared in South Africa, Australia, Austria, Portugal, Japan, Macau, Sumatra and the UK. His most recent work is Unbelievers, or The Moor, a volume about cultural vestige in Iberia and the Indian Ocean periphery. He has read his work at festivals in Europe, Asia and Africa, including at PEN’s Free the Word! Festival in London. His poetry includes: João; Emptiness: Asian Poems 1998-2012; Unbelievers, or ‘The Moor’; Southern Barbarians; The West: Australian Poems 1989-2009. His prose includes: The Quiet Slave: a History in Eight Episodes; Semar’s Cave: an Indonesian Journal.