Marlene van Niekerk was born on 10 November 1954, on the farm Tygerhoek near Caledon in the Western Cape, South Africa. She attended school in Riviersonderend and Stellenbosch, where she matriculated from Hoërskool Bloemhof.

She studied Languages and Philosophy at Stellenbosch University and obtained an MA with the thesis: Die aard en belang van die literêre vormgewing in 'Also sprach Zarathustra' in 1978.

At university she wrote three plays for the lay theatre. In 1979 she moved to Germany to join theatres in Stuttgart and Mainz as apprentice for directing. From 1980 - 1985 she continued her studies of philosophy in the Netherlands and obtained a Drs with a thesis on the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Paul Ricoeur: "Taal en mythe: een structuralistische en een hermeneutische benadering."

Back in South Africa she lectured in Philosophy at the University of Zululand, and later at Unisa. Afterwards she was lecturer in Afrikaans and Dutch at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Marlene van Niekerk is now Professor at the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, Stellenbosch University.