Sisonke Msimang will be in conversation with Andrew Leigh MP on Sisonke's new book, Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home. The vote of thanks will be given by the South African High Commissioner, Her Excellency Ms Beryl Rose Sisulu.

Sisonke Msimang was born in exile, the daughter of South African freedom fighters. Always Another Country is the story of a young girl's path to womanhood - a journey that took her from Africa to America and back again, then on to a new home in Australia. This is a coming-of-age memoir with no holds barred honesty.

Frank, fierce and insightful, Sisonke reflects candidly on the abuse she suffered as a child, the naive, heady euphoria of returning at last to her parents' homeland - and her disillusionment with present-day South Africa and its new elites. Sisonke Msimang is a bold new voice on feminism, race and politics - in her beloved South Africa, in Australia, and around the world.

Sisonke Msimang was born and raised in Zambia, Kenya and Canada before studying in the US as an undergraduate. Her family returned to South Africa after apartheid was abolished in the early 1990s. Sisonke has held fellowships at Yale University, the Aspen Institute and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and is a regular contributor to the Guardian, Newsweek and the New York Times. She now lives in Perth, Australia, where she is head of oral storytelling at the Centre for Stories. Her TED lecture on storytelling has been viewed over 1million times.

"Few of us have felt the grinding force of history as consciously or as constantly as Sisonke Msimang. Her story is a timely insight into a life in which the gap between the great world and the private realm is vanishingly narrow and it bears hard lessons about how fragile our hopes and dreams can be".  - Tim Winton

Dr Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Federal Member for Fenner in the ACT. He holds a PhD in public policy from Harvard, having graduated from the University of Sydney with first class honours in Law and Arts. His books include Disconnected (2010), Battlers and Billionaires (2013), The Economics of Just About Everything (2014), The Luck of Politics (2015). Choosing Openness (2017) and Randomistas (2018).

Register for this event. 

Pre-event book signing will be available from 5.30pm and again after the event. This event is in association with Dymocks Canberra and books will be available to purchase.