Ken Enderby was born in 1955, and has degrees in history and economics. After brief stints as a high school teacher then as a scriptwriter, he became a peace and human rights activist in the 1980s. It was a role that took him to parts of the world where conflict and oppression were rife. He travelled to East Germany and Czechoslovakia to meet with critics of the Soviet-backed regimes, trekked upcountry in El Salvador and the Philippines to interview Marxist guerrillas, ventured into the Guatemalan highlands to investigate the government’s campaign of genocide, and visited Israel and the Occupied Territories to talk with moderates and extremists on both sides. Ken was with Solidarity in Poland during martial law, in Nicaragua during the war with the Contras and in Western Europe during the anti-missile protests. He gave talks and interviews in more than thirty countries, took part in demonstrations and letter-writing campaigns, raised money for aid projects and contributed to journals and newspapers in Australia and overseas.

Throughout this period, Ken financed his activities by working as a casual teacher in TAFE and a tutor at Sydney University. Then, in 1989, he accepted a full-time job at Bankstown TAFE, where he taught history, economics and politics for thirty years.

Despite settling down to a relatively quiet life, Ken maintained his interest in economic development and human rights. He raised money for aid projects in different parts of the world, helped the resistance movement in East Timor and worked to secure the release of Mamdouh Habib from Guantanamo Bay. He also undertook study trips to North Korea, East Timor and the Philippines, and has returned to the Middle East on several occasions to assess the situation in the Occupied Territories. In 2019, he travelled across Russia, talking to people from all walks of life about Putin, Putin’s regime and the conflict in Donbas. 

Since retiring at the end of 2018, Ken has focused his attention on climate change, something that has interested him for decades, and is currently president of Climate Action Burwood/Canada Bay in Sydney’s inner west. In 2020, he completed a course on climate science at Queensland University, and now concentrates on debunking myths perpetrated by climate deniers. His letters are published regularly in The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Telegraph.

Ken has also written for radio and television and was co-author of the novel Trail of Deceit, published in 2011. That same year he featured on ABC Radio’s Conversations with Richard Fidler. 

Ken speaks French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian and some Indonesian. He is married, with two adult children, and lives in Concord, Sydney.