Cynthia Jele is a South African novelist. Her novel Happiness is a Four-Letter Word won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book, Africa Region and the M-Net film prize at the 2011 M-Net Literary Awards. The novel was later adapted into a movie. She grew up in Mpumalanga, South Africa. She graduated from North Central College, with a BA degree in International Business in 2003. Jele worked as a public health officer for the Mpumalanga Health Department, and then spent a year in the United States as an au pair.