Sandile Mokoena

Sandile Mokoena is a Johannesburg-based journalist whose biography of Steve Biko was a finalist for the 2024 Alan Paton Award. He writes about southern African political and musical figures with the patience of an oral historian.

His long-form profile work includes the books Room 619, The Estadio Chile, The Thirty-Year Exile, and The Trench Town Origin. Each narrative relies on extensive archival research and direct interviews with living witnesses to reconstruct complex twentieth-century histories.

He lives in the suburb of Melville, Johannesburg, where he collects vinyl records and works as a freelance newspaper contributor.