Sisonke Msimang is a writer, columnist and author, whose work is focussed on race, gender and democracy. She has held fellowships at Yale University, the Aspen Institute and the University of Witswatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg. She was born in Swaziland to parents who were political exiles, and raised in Zambia, Kenya and Canada, before going to the US as an undergraduate. Her family returned to South Africa after the release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of liberation movements in the early 1990s.

Msimang is the author of Always Another Country: A memoir of exile and home. She has written for a range of international publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post and Al Jazeera.