Rosieda Shabodien

Rosieda Shabodien is a South African writer, executive coach, and gender and development specialist whose work spans creative nonfiction, women’s leadership and public advocacy. Raised in Elsies River, Cape Town, she has written candidly about growing up amid poverty and trauma, experiences that continue to shape both her writing and her commitment to telling authentic South African stories.

Her work explores memory, identity, faith, family and the enduring legacy of apartheid, examining how personal lives are shaped by wider social and political forces. In 2024, she published What Women Want Coaches to Know: A Gender-Intelligent Coaching Approach, drawing on her extensive experience supporting women in leadership and professional development.

Shabodien has spoken of writing as a way of recovering memory, making sense of lived experience and finding language for the emotional complexity of everyday life. Through both her fiction and nonfiction, she has established herself as a distinctive voice in contemporary South African literature, championing testimony, social justice and the transformative power of storytelling.