At age 11 Louis Pretorius’ family moved to Potgietersrus (now Mokopane) where he spent the next six years crushing on girls and yearning for boys in the suffocating world of conservatism and religion.
After matriculating in 1997 he escaped to the UK and Mexico, waitering and teaching English as a foreign language. Returning after the millennium he discovered the word bisexual for the first time while working in Pretoria for two years before finally enrolling for a drama degree at Stellenbosch University in 2003. Two years later he married the love of his life, Mareli, and in 2008 he obtained his master’s degree in directing. By that time he had already started writing for the daily soap, Binnelanders, and also experimented with radio and stage plays.
In 2011, he found his niche in TV, and since then he’s written across genres like dramedy, romance, youth, and law. Some of his most well-known series are The Book Club, Wedding Fever, and his latest show, Homecoming, which debuted on Netflix earlier this year. As a writer, he’s drawn to strong, character-driven stories and is constantly searching for the reason behind our existence. He always tries to incorporate queer stories in his work in various guises as he believes it is important stories to tell.
In addition to being a TV writer, his debut youth novel, Complex, was published in 2023 and in 2025 it was awarded with the Scheepers prize for youth literature. His second novel, A year in my Life, came out in October this year, chronicling the lives of two gay boys falling in love in 1996 in Potgietersrus. This is the love story he never had at school.
Today, he has been happily married for 21 years to a woman who embraces his bisexuality. He is the proud father of a 12-year-old nerd who plays piano, Xbox, and golf. He has regular padel partners and they play at least twice a week. He continues working on new ideas, but realises he is losing touch with Gen Z and even young Millennials and want to move more into science fiction and fantasy.
He’s a member of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and hopes his Hogwarts letter will one day arrive. He will probably be Ravenclaw, but wouldn’t mind Hufflepuff if everyone looks like Cedric Diggory in the movies.
