Anna Elizabeth (Antjie) Krog was born in 1952 into a family of authors - her mother is the famous Afrikaans writer Dot Serfontein - and made her debut as an Afrikaans poet while still in school, when in 1970 at the age of 18, her first volume of poetry, Dogter van Jefta was published. In 1972 her second volume, Januarie-suite, was published, and in 1973 it received the Eugène Marais Award. She completed a BA Degree and an Honors Degree in English (1973) at the University of the Free State and in 1976, she completed an MA Degree in Afrikaans at the University of Pretoria.

Her volume of poetry Jerusalemgangers was awarded the Rapport Prize in 1987, and in 1990 she received the Hertzog Prize for poetry for her volume Lady Anne.

In 1993 she was appointed at the magazine Die Suid-Afrikaan, and in 1995 she started working as a political reporter for the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). Antjie reported on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s hearings from 1996 to 1998. She chronicled her experiences regarding this process in the non-fiction book for which she is best known - Country of My Skull. The book is an intersectional, interdisciplinary analysis of the Commission's potential and realized effects on post-Apartheid South Africa; an amalgamation of journalism, prose, personal narrative, and poetry. The book was published in 1998 by Random House SA. Initially written in Afrikaans, the book has now been published in various countries. It was later made into a film, entitled In My Country, starring Juliette Binoche and Samuel L. Jackson. The book received, amongst others, the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction and the Olive Schreiner Prize.

Antjie Krog’s only stage play, Waarom is die wat voor toyi-toyi altyd so vet?, was performed in 1999 under the direction of Marthinus Basson and ’n Ander tongval was adapted for the stage by Saartjie Botha and starred Antoinette Kellerman and Nina Swart.

Down to My Last Skin, her first collection of poetry in English (published by Random House SA in 2000, as was A Change of Tongue, three years later) won the inaugural 2000 FNB Vita Poetry Award. For her journalistic work Krog has received the Pringle Award as well as the Foreign Correspondent Award and was honoured by the Hiroshima Peace Foundation. She has also been the recipient of the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. Kleur kom nooit alleen nie was awarded the first RAU (now University of Johannesburg) Prize for creative writing in 2001.

Her volume Met woorde soos met kerse in which her Afrikaans translations and adaptations of South African indigenous language poems (including the San languages) are contained, was awarded first place in the South African Translators Institute’s Competition (held every three years) in 2003. In 2004, her volume of poetry Die sterre sê ‘tsau’ was published by Kwela Books and subsequently shortlisted for the 2005 M-Net Poetry Prize.

She has been an extraordinary Professor of Literature and Philosophy at the University of the Western Cape since 2004. Her translation of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, into Afrikaans, entitled, Lang pad na vryheid, was published in 2000.