Biography

Sousa Jamba was born in 1966 in Dondi, Huambo, in central Angola. His family supported the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which fought with the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the Angolan War of Independence (1961–75). Later, UNITA fought against the MPLA during the civil war (1975–2002). In 1975, when Jamba was nine years old, he and his family left Angola to escape the violence after the country gained independence. They lived as refugees in Zambia before moving to England. Jamba has said, "There was a feeling that if you were from UNITA, you had to leave the country or go into the bush, which is exactly what my family did."

In 1985, Jamba returned to Angola and worked as a reporter and translator for the UNITA News Agency. In 1986, he studied journalism in Britain on a scholarship and began writing for The Spectator. From 1988 to 1991, he earned a bachelor’s degree in Media Studies at Westminster University in London. He also holds a master’s degree in Leadership and Strategic Communications from Seton Hall University in New Jersey, United States. After 27 years away from his home country, he returned to Angola.

Jamba has written several books, including Patriots (1992), a fictional autobiography that received praise from critics. Andrew McKie of The Telegraph wrote, "Sousa Jamba's brilliant and terrifying (and often very funny) novel Patriots gives a child’s view of the war in Angola." His second novel, A Lonely Devil, was published in 1993. He has written for newspapers and journals such as Granta, The Spectator, and The New Statesman. He writes a weekly column for the Angolan newspaper Semanario Angolense and a column on leadership for the business magazine Exame. He currently lives in Jacksonville, Florida, USA.

Jamba contributed an essay to the 2005 book The Silver Throat of the Moon: Writing in Exile, edited by Jennifer Langer.