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Professor Xolela Mangcu has been described by the Sunday Times as “possibly the most prolific public intellectual in South Africa”. He is an associate professor in Sociology at the University of Cape Town and has held fellowships at the Brookings Institution, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Rockefeller Foundation, and currently also at Harvard University.

He has published seven books, most recently Biko: A Biography for which he received high accolade. He is also a regular columnist for a number of South African and international newspapers, including the Business Day, the Sunday Independent, the Sowetan and the Cape Times. He founded the Platform for Public Deliberation and is the Founding Executive Director of the Steve Biko Foundation.

Prof Mangcu is an advocate for Steve Biko’s philosophy of Black Consciousness, Affirmative action as a means to promote diversity and an overall increase in the number of black South Africans in academia. His statements in this regard has often led to uproar in the UCT community and elsewhere, most recently when he criticized the UCT senate for being “predominantly white” while trying to address racial inequality in higher education. This is in line with Biko’s teachings.

Prof Mangcu also chairs the prestigious Sunday Times Alan Paton Awards.