Jacob Asher Singer was born in 1935 near Johannesburg, in South Africa. After attending the Potchefstroom High School for Boys, he studied pharmacy at Chelsea Polytechnic in London, England. He was a practicing pharmacist in Potchefstroom for the next twenty-five years. Although Jacob was not politically active, he met and knew many active players on both sides of the political fence. When he was threatened by the security police for withholding information, he encouraged his children to emigrate, and once they had established themselves, he and his wife, Evelyn, joined them in 1992. His first book, Brakenstroom, is a book of short stories about life in Potchefstroom.