Cyprian Fernandes

Cyprian "Skip" Fernandes (born September 1943) is a retired journalist and author. Having started life and his career in Kenya, he is now based in Sydney, Australia.

Early life and education Cyprian Fernandes was born in September 1943 into a Goan family in Nairobi, Kenya, which was still a British colony. He was raised, along with five siblings, by a single mother, after his alcoholic father had left the family. He grew up in the Asian suburb of Eastleigh in Nairobi.

Career Fernandes worked first in a warehouse, followed by a bank, the civil service, and then as an acting juvenile probation officer. After lying about his age, claiming to be 22, Fernandes was hired as a sports journalist at the Daily Nation and Sunday Nation when he was 17, which were part of Aga Khan IV's newspaper empire. Fernandes' career was influenced there by the Goan editor of the Daily Nation, Joe Rodrigues.

He became a political and investigative journalist in the early 1960s, and got to know many future leaders well. Fernandes obtained one of the earliest interviews with Idi Amin, who was responsible for the expulsion of Asians from Uganda, ), in the 1980s. and was held senior positions on this newspaper and later The Australian.

Books In 2016, Fernandes published a memoir, Yesterday in Paradise, 1950-1974, via Balboa Press.

In 2018, Fernandes published Stars Next Door. Published in Goa, the book tells the story of the many Goan sportsmen and -women who excelled in East Africa, as well as East African musicians of Goan origin.

In 2021, Twilight of the Exiles was published by the Fellowship of Australian Writers. It contains the stories of 41 people originally from Goa who migrated from Africa.

Personal life Fernandes married Rufina and they had children in Kenya before leaving for the UK.