Azad Essa is a journalist, columnist and aspiring filmmaker. He completed a multinational Global Studies MA in 2005 and spent several years slaving away in South African academia before launching his journalism career. He calls Durban home, but is currently working for the Al Jazeera Network in Doha, Qatar.

Azad came to prominence writing the Accidental Academic, a provocative and award winning Thought Leader blog that challenged the established assumptions of contemporary South African culture, politics and events.  His first book ‘Zuma’s bastard: Encounters with a desktop terrorist’ (Two Dogs Books) was published in late 2010. With writing adapted from and inspired by the Accidental Academic, Zuma’s Bastard tackles race, religion and politics head-on, gives fresh insight into the Israel-Palestine conflict, unpacks the South African-Indian-African identity into its constituent dirty parts and casts new light on old stereotypes, often pissing all over them. Zuma’s Bastard comes with an age restriction.