Ninki Mallet

Ninki Mallet is a South African writer with homes in Palm Springs, California, and Cape Town, South Africa.

She is the author of two cookbooks, eleven books for children and, most recently, a book of short stories set in Thailand. She is now working on a non-fiction book for adults.

She worked in the film industry in Europe, produced feature films and has written screenplays. At present she is working on the 3D film "The Fantastic Merry-Go-Round" - www.laterradeisantipazzi.it

She moved to Thailand in the late 1980's and worked as a columnist for the Bangkok Post, the largest English-language newspaper in South-East Asia.

In 2001 she founded The Mallet Knitting Foundation and taught 1500 children in Los Angeles and the Eastern Cape of South Africa basic knitting, also taught impoverished women and old-age pensioners in Pretoria, Graaff-Reinet and Cape Town the almost-lost craft of bead-knitting At times there were grandmothers who suddenly became the sole support of their families due to the deaths of parents from AIDS, empowered to earn money by knitting items to sell at church bazaars. Children from Webster Elementary School in Malibu, California, and Charles Duna School in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, became penpals and exchanged blankets they had knitted for the elderly. Programs teaching knitting to both boys and girls in elementary school continue today. An unexpected bonus of teaching knitting in the poverty-stricken townships was parent participation in the classrooms, something previously unknown. The Mallet Knitting Foundation sponsored a trip by the Headmistress of the school, Nombulelo Sume, to England and the USA.

Contact: ninkimallet@yahoo.com