Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese diaspora writer, broadcaster, and award-winning social advocate.

The former engineer has published five books, most recently, Stand Up and Speak Out Against Racism (Walker, 2023), named a ‘Best Book of the Year’ by School Library Journal and Guardian. Previous books include essay collection Talking About A Revolution (PRH, 2022), and two novels for younger readers, You Must Be Layla (Puffin, 2020) and Listen Layla (Puffin, 2021), longlisted for Book of the Year by The Children’s Book Council of Australia. She has a forthcoming adult novel, and has most recently signed a two book deal with Hachette UK for teen series, The Hidden Legacy.

Yassmin’s commentary has appeared in the Observer Magazine, TIME, New Lines, Guardian, The New York Times, Times Literary Supplement, Vogue and more. She has a Substack, Good Chat with thousands of weekly readers, and is a monthly columnist for Hyphen, previously writing fortnightly columns for The New Arab and London’s Evening Standard. Her critically acclaimed essays have also been published widely, including in the best-selling It’s Not About The Burqa and The New Daughters of Africa.

Yassmin also writes for stage and screen. She was selected for ITV's 2024 Original Voices placement on the British soap EMMERDALE and is developing a slate of other TV projects for screen, including action-drama CRUISE CONTROL with Anyway Content. In 2020, she co-wrote the sold-out immersive theatre production in Kensington Palace, United Queendom, and has been selected for several playwrighting courses, including the Soho Theatre Writers Lab. The LAYLA series was optioned by the award-winning Goalpost Pictures, with Yassmin as creator and lead writer, and is currently in development. In 2021, Yassmin was awarded the Australia Council Keesing Studio International Artist residency, and spent the year at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Since, she has been selected for numerous residencies and fellowships around the world, including Sewanee Writers Conference, Hedgebook, Kimmel Harding Nelson, Passa Porta, VCCA, RUPERT and more.

One of the LinkedIn 2020 #Changemakers and 2022 Tiktok #Teammates, Yassmin is a globally sought-after speaker and advisor on social justice issues and inclusive leadership. She has delivered workshops and keynotes in 25 countries across five continents. Her internationally acclaimed TED talk, What does my headscarf mean to you, has been viewed over 2.5 million times and was chosen as one of TED’s top ten ideas in 2015. She has a combined social media following of over of 360K.

With over a decade of governance experience across sectors, Yassmin’s work is informed by both theory and experience. She founded Youth Without Borders at the age of 16, leading it for nine years before starting Mumtaza, focusing on the empowerment of women of colour. She has been awarded numerous awards for her advocacy, including the Young Voltaire Award for Free Speech and Queensland Young Australian of the Year, and currently sits on the Trustee Board of the London Library and the Edinburgh International Book Festival, previously serving on the Boards of the Queensland Museum, ChildFund Australia and the domestic violence prevention organisation, OurWatch.

Yassmin has presented TV and podcasts in Australia, Britain and the US, including national current affairs show Australia Wide, ground-breaking documentary The Truth About Racism, and Hijabistas, a series looking at the modest fashion scene in Australia. She is a regular news and current affairs commentator on the BBC, Aljazeera, Monocle 24 and can be heard hosting podcasts such as Motor Mouth (on becoming a Formula 1 driver), EY’s Better Questions (helping CEOs lead into the future), and The Guilty Feminist.

In all her work, Yassmin is an advocate for transformative justice and a fairer, safer world for all.