Errol Lincoln Uys (pronounced 'Ace') was ten when he wrote Revenge, a novella penned on the back of worthless stock certificates tossed out by his mother. After high school, he worked as a law clerk for two years before becoming a reporter on the Johannesburg Star. His next job was as editor of the Cape Town edition of Post, then South Africa's biggest weekly among its African and mixed-race population.

Moving to London, he was chief reporter for the South East London Mercury, before joining Reader's Digest in England. The magazine sent him back to Africa, where he founded the first South African editorial office, becoming editor-in-chief in 1972.

Five years later, he moved to the United States with his family, joining the Digest's world headquarters as a senior international editor. In 1977, the Digest assigned him to work with James A. Michener on his South African novel, The Covenant, a controversial collaboration covered in Working with James Michener.

Uys is the author of the acclaimed historical novel, Brazil. Of this work, distinguished Brazilian critic Wilson Martins wrote: "Uys accomplished what no Brazilian author from JosAc de Alencar to JoA£o Ubaldo Ribeiro and Jorge Amado was able to do. He is the first to write our national epic in its entirety â_" the first outsider to see us with total honesty and sympathy. Descriptions like those of the war with Paraguay are unsurpassed in our literature and evoke the great passages of War and Peace."

Brazil won the highest critical acclaim in the United Kingdom, Germany and France, where it was a bestseller ( La Forteresse Verte .) Said Le Figaro : "No one before Uys knew how to bring to life Brazil and her history. Uys's characters are brilliant and colorful, combining elements of the best swashbuckler with those worthy of deepest reflection." L'Express concurred: " A masterpiece! Brazil has the feel of an enchanted virgin forest, a totally new and original world for the reader-explorer to discover."

Publisher's Weekly described Brazil as " Pulsing with vigor, this is a vast novel to tell the story of a vast country. The principal characters, both real and imaginary, are hard to forget."

Uys has also written the non-fiction book, Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression (TV Books, 1999; Routledge, 2003.) The Boston Globe praised this work as "A riveting document of hope and hardship. The reader can all but hear the cadence of the trains on the tracks and the lonesome wail at every whistle-stop." Riding the Rails was chosen as one of the "10 Best Books of 1999" by Amazon's history editor.

He has been a resident of Massachusetts since 1981 and lives in Dorchester, Boston.