Saul Musker

Saul recently completed a BA (Hons) at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he triple-majored in International Relations, French and English Literature and graduated cum laude. His Honours thesis focused on regional migration in Southern Africa and the experiences of migrants and asylum-seekers living in the Johannesburg inner city, drawing on extensive fieldwork he conducted in the immigrant neighbourhood of Yeoville. He is also co-authoring a book on the necessary preconditions for an enduring constitutional democracy in South Africa, to be published through Juta Law in 2017.

Beyond his academic work, he is committed to generating public discourse on issues related to South Africa and the African continent. He has served as the President of the South African Schools Debating Board and a coach of the national debating team, positions which he used to expand debating to under-resourced schools and areas which would never otherwise have been exposed to it. He is a regular columnist at the Daily Maverick, South Africa's most widely-read news and analysis publication, where he covers national and international politics, and has contributed to The Guardian, Al Jazeera English and the BBC. His anthology of poems, Poems of the City, was awarded the Deon Hofmeyr Prize in 2014, and his first novel, No Word like Home, was recently shortlisted for the Dinaane Debut Fiction Award.

In recognition of his academic achievements and record of leadership, Saul was awarded both the Fulbright Scholarship and the Rhodes Scholarship to pursue graduate studies in 2017. He has accepted the latter, and will read for an MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy at Oxford University. His current research interests include land rights and large-scale land acquisitions in sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular emphasis on the implications of different land tenure arrangements for the protection of local people's rights.

In his spare time, Saul is a compulsive reader of fiction, a long-distance swimmer and a triathlete. He looks forward to a steep learning curve at the Brenthurst Foundation, and is eager to contribute to its important work.