Anna Stroud

Hi, I’m Anna Stroud

The author of Who Looks Inside and winner of the best emerging fiction author category at the 2025 Humanities and Social Sciences Awards.

“There is an incredible new voice in South African Literature” – Michael Boyd, author of The Weight of Shade.

About

Anna Stroud lives in Melville with her two dogs, Raven and Poe, and an equally furry husband named Sean. She has a degree in journalism from Rhodes University, a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Pretoria, and a certificate in behavioural linguistics from GIBS Business School. She freelances as a copywriter and her work has appeared in The Sunday Times, Books LIVE, The Reading List, The Johannesburg Review of Books and The Daily Maverick, among other publications. Who Looks Inside is her debut novel, published by Karavan Press.

Who Looks Inside

I wish I could stay where I am right now. In the in-between, neither here nor there. The past behind me, the future a distant dream.

When Hannah, an English teacher in South Korea, learns that her mother has died, she returns to her childhood home in the Karoo, South Africa, only to discover the usurper, Hanna, living the life she’s tried to escape.

Should Hannah overthrow the usurper and reclaim her place or return to her demure life away from the noise and chaos of her childhood? As she grapples with this internal conflict, her doppelganger turns the tables and pursues Hannah as her life unravels.

Hannah tries desperately to escape her doppelganger – only to realise that it’s impossible: she cannot escape herself.

“Poetic, atmospheric and haunting—Who Looks Inside is an intricate and compelling exploration of family trauma, small-town secrets and the decisions that seal our destinies.”

Jennifer Malec

The Johannesburg Review of Books editor

More praise

"Anna Stroud makes you work — but she rewards the attention that you have to give this book and she writes beautifully. She writes sparsely, but when she writes lyrically it is with a poetic lyricism, and her insight into childhood trauma and impact on adults is profound. I highly recommend for those who like literary fiction, particularly South African literary fiction, Who Looks Inside by Anna Stroud."

"Who Looks Inside demands your full attention with its imaginative leaps into the nature of trauma, how it is experienced, and how healing can take place. This is an assured debut. Stroud keeps us intrigued throughout, guessing, wondering, and then drawing our own conclusions"

"Who Looks Inside is a propulsive, often surreal story of one woman’s reckoning with childhood trauma, her destiny and what home really means. Moving between South Korea and the Karoo, the book is both dream-like and rooted in harsh reality. Certain parts of Anna’s writing style and use of narration reminded me of Ruth Ozeki, while some of themes and setting were comparable to Miranda Sherry’s (incredible) Black Dog Summer. A really accessible, interesting read, written by a fresh, exciting new voice in SA literature".

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