David Albertyn

David Albertyn was born in Durban, South Africa in 1983. His father was involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, and for his efforts was served a banning order by the apartheid government for five years. From a young age David learned the importance of standing up to injustice even if you are not on the receiving end of that injustice.

When David was eight years old his next-door-neighbour was stabbed to death outside his front door. In the wake of the murder, his family immigrated to Toronto, Canada. They joined relatives there in 1993.

David began writing stories when he was six years old. In his final years in South Africa he was taken by Tolkien and Greek and Norse myths. In Canada he was introduced to Michael Crichton and Frank Herbert. David read, and re-read, these early influences voraciously, trying to emulate the thrills, wonder, and vast scope he experienced in these stories in his own writing. At Queen’s University, pursuing a Film Studies major, he enrolled in creative writing courses that significantly developed his writing ability. His writing was further developed in the Humber School for Writers’ Creative Writing program, where he received a Letter of Distinction. As an adult he was inspired by the content of works by Chinua Achebe and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and the style of works by Hilary Mantel and JM Coetzee, while trying to maintain the entertaining, dynamic, and epic qualities of his earlier influences. David’s goal is to write visceral stories that are both thrilling and meaningful.

While writing was David’s first passion, sports was his second. He competed in a variety of them growing up, running being his primary focus. In university he switched from track and field to tennis, a sport he had always loved but had never pursued seriously. His day job since graduating university has been as a tennis coach, a profession he has grown to love.

The result of all David’s interests, influences and efforts is Undercard, which is infused with scrupulous research and the pulse of the times we live in. It immediately resonated with David’s Canadian publisher, House of Anansi, and went on to resonate with his international publishers, HarperCollins Germany and HarperCollins France, his World English audiobook publisher, Dreamscape Media, and the award-winning production company that optioned the film/TV rights, Shaftesbury.

Undercard was first released in Canada in February of 2019, and by the start of the following year it was a finalist for the 2020 Forest of Reading Evergreen Award and had made 49th Shelf’s Top Fiction List of 2019. In June of 2020 it was released in the United States, and immediately made CrimeReads’ list of “8 Debut Novels You Should Read This June”.