Christiaan Johan Barnard, known as Chris Barnard, was a South African author and movie scriptwriter. He was known for writing Afrikaans novels, novellas, columns, youth novels, short stories, plays, radio dramas, film scripts and television dramas.
Barnard is viewed as one of the more important figures of the movement of the “Sestigers” (Sixty-ers) in Afrikaans literature.
After completing his matric, he did a BA at the University of Pretoria where he was the editor of several university magazines. Later he worked as a journalist at different newspapers and magazines, including Die Vaderland, Dagbreek & Sondagnuus, Die Brandwag en Huisgenoot in addition to working as a publisher. When he got married to the moviemaker Katinka Heyns in 1978 he also got involved in the film industry.