Zirk van den Berg is a bilingual author (English and Afrikaans) who writes across different genres.
He has won four significant literary awards in Afrikaans: His crime novel 'n Ander Mens won the inaugural kykNET-Rapport Prize for best filmable book - an award he won a second time with his urban fable Ek Wens, Ek Wens. This book also won the overall fiction award at this event, not long after the book was honoured with the WA Hofmeyr Prize for Afrikaans fiction.
Four of his books appeared in both Afrikaans and English, one only in English and three only in Afrikaans.
His first book was a collection of literary short stories, followed by a short historical novel, both in Afrikaans. In 2004, Random House New Zealand published Nobody Dies, a crime story set in South Africa. New Zealand Herald named it one of the top five thrillers of the year, the only local book on the list.
Nobody Dies was republished as ebook in 2011. The Afrikaans translation, 'n Ander Mens, appeared in South Africa in 2013. An action comedy based on this book had a theatre release in 2019.
His historical novel Half of One Thing was published by Penguin South Africa in 2014, along with the author's own Afrikaans translation, Halfpad Een Ding.
No-Brainer, a darkly humourous mystery that falls somewhere between Kinky Friedman and K.C. Constantine in style, appeared as ebook only in 2011.
A historical novel, Parts Unknown, was published in 2018, again in both languages. Its sequel appeared only in Afrikaans, as Tweegevreet, in 2020.
The English version of his award-winning Ek Wens, Ek Wens, appeared in New Zealand and Australia in 2020 as I Wish, I Wish.
Zirk van den Berg has translated three Wilbur Smith novels into Afrikaans, two novels by Philip Kerr, as well as cricketer A.B. de Villiers's autobiography.