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Anjan Sundaram

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Anjan Sundaram
Born1983 Edit this on Wikidata
Ranchi, India
LanguageEnglish language Edit this on Wikidata
Alma materYale University (BS + MS Mathematics)
University of East Anglia (PhD Literature)
Indian Institute of Technology Madras (Electrical Engineering)
Ecole Normale Supérieure (Mathematics)
Website
www.anjansundaram.comEdit this at Wikidata

Anjan Sundaram is an Indian author, journalist, academic, and television presenter. He is the author of three memoirs of journalism, Stringer, Bad News and Breakup, and has been called "one of the great reporters of our age" by the BBC foreign correspondent Fergal Keane.[1]

Early life and education

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Sundaram was born in Ranchi, India, and grew up in Dubai. He studied at Rishi Valley School in India, and was awarded a gold medal in the Indian Physics Olympiad in 2000. After enrolling in the electrical engineering program at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, he moved to the United States and graduated from Yale University in 2005. Sundaram earned a master's degree in mathematics as an undergraduate at Yale, studying abstract algebra under celebrated mathematician and activist Serge Lang.[2]

Career

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He then turned down a job as a mathematician at Goldman Sachs, and began to write, reporting as a stringer for The New York Times and The Associated Press from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.[3] He taught journalism in 2016 at Brockwood Park,[4] a school founded by Jiddu Krishnamurti. In 2018, he obtained a PhD in journalism from the University of East Anglia, studying under British author Giles Foden.[5]

Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo

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Sundaram's debut Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo earned him comparisons to Ryszard Kapuściński and Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul.[6][7] Stringer was published by Sonny Mehta, the legendary editor of Kapuściński, Naipaul and several Nobel laureates, and was featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, who called the book "remarkable". It was also a Royal African Society book of the year and a BBC book of the week.[8] A feature of Sundaram's writing is his immersive portrayal of what it feels like to be in a place.[9][10][11]

Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship

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Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship, about the rise of dictatorship in Rwanda, was published in January 2016 and named an Amazon book of the year. It also won the Moore prize and Ingabire prize, and was a finalist for the PEN/America nonfiction prize.[12][13] Noam Chomsky praised it for providing "insights about the human condition that reach far beyond the tragic story of Rwanda." Christiane Amanpour interviewed Anjan about the book in 2020.[14] Bad News documents the persecution of journalists in Rwanda, including a non-exhaustive appendix of Rwandan journalists, many of whom were killed, disappeared, arrested, or forced into exile.[15] The Guardian called it "an important book that should shatter any lingering faith people might hold in Kagame's hideous regime" and the Washington Post described it as "courageous and heartfelt."[16][17]

Breakup: A Marriage in Wartime

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Sundaram's third memoir explores the effects of his war reporting on his family. The Washington Post listed it as one of the most-anticipated books of 2023 for its reporting "on the global and the personal,"[18] while Time magazine named it a best book of April 2023.[19] Amy Goodman invited Sundaram on Democracy Now to explain "why the world's deadliest conflicts go unreported."[20] The Pulitzer-winning novelist Junot Diaz wrote that Breakup "recalls the best of Michael Herr and V.S. Naipaul but with humanity that steals one’s breath away."[21] Baillie Gifford Prize-winning lawyer Philippe Sands called Breakup "immensely powerful," and Booker-finalist Sunjeev Sahota called Sundaram "an astonishing writer." The LA Review of Books compared Sundaram to the Nobel laureate William Faulkner.[22] Fergal Keane said of Sundaram: "He writes with exceptional courage and deep humanity. An inspiring chronicler of the world and the spirit."[23]

Reportage

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In 2015, a jury of journalists including Jon Lee Anderson and Carlotta Gall awarded Sundaram the annual Frontline Club prize for his war reporting from the Central African Republic, calling his story A Place on Earth "an excellent, highly original piece of reportage and writing, reminiscent of Ryzard Kapuściński and V.S. Naipaul at their best."[24] Sundaram also received a Reuters environmental journalism prize in 2006 for his reporting from the Democratic Republic of Congo.[25]

Television

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Sundaram hosted a four-part television series called Coded World in 2019,[26] which explores how algorithms and artificial intelligence are changing humans. The series combines Sundaram's expertise in mathematics and journalism.

He also presented a four-part series in 2016 called Deciphering India with Anjan Sundaram,[27] which explores the contentious rise of nationalism in India. The episodes were titled "Godmen", "The Sacred Cow", "The Great Indian Male" and "Identity".

Talks

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His TED talk in 2017, titled Why I risked my life to expose a government massacre, is about his reporting on remote conflicts.[28] In 2016 he gave a talk called Detecting a Dictatorship at the Oslo Freedom Forum, about journalists who confronted Rwanda's authoritarian government.[29]

Personal life

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He was married to the French-Canadian journalist and author, Nathalie Blaquiere, for nearly a decade, before they divorced in 2017. They have a daughter. He describes his marriage and divorce, along with his war correspondence, in his book Breakup: A Marriage in Wartime.[30]

His mother is the journalist and actress Vasanti Sundaram.

References

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  1. ^ "Breakup". Hurst publishers. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
  2. ^ "The Assignment". Open Magazine. 9 February 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  3. ^ "We are in this world together" (PDF). Brockwood Park School. Retrieved 16 September 2019.
  4. ^ "Brockwood Park School". KFI. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  5. ^ Sundaram, Anjan (March 2017). Forgotten newsmakers : postcolonial chronicles of stringers and local journalists in Central Africa (doctoral). University of East Anglia. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  6. ^ "Stringer by Anjan Sundaram - Book - eBook". Random House. 8 March 2011. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  7. ^ "Upsides to 'I'". Columbia Journalism Review. 5 February 2014. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  8. ^ "The Daily Show, Anjan Sundaram". The Daily Show. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
  9. ^ "Signposts". Asian Age. 25 March 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  10. ^ "The Things They Carried: The Congolese Rebel - Interview by Anjan Sundaram". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  11. ^ "A Place on Earth". Granta. 1 February 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
  12. ^ "Bad News wins Moore prize". Oxford University Faculty of Law. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  13. ^ "PEN award finalists". PEN America. 18 January 2017. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  14. ^ "Shocking Twist for Hotel Rwanda hero". CNN. 25 September 2020. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  15. ^ Lemarchand, René (2018). "Rwanda: the state of Research | Sciences Po Violence de masse et Résistance – Réseau de recherche". Sciencespo.fr. ISSN 1961-9898.
  16. ^ Birrell, Ian (11 January 2016). "Rwanda's Big Brother". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 February 2016.
  17. ^ "In Rwanda, a journalist opens his notebook to expose injustice". Washington Post. Retrieved 25 February 2016.
  18. ^ "What to Read in 2023". Washington Post. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  19. ^ "Time best books of April 2023". Time. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  20. ^ ""World's Deadliest Wars Go Unreported": Journalist Anjan Sundaram". Democracy Now. Retrieved 8 June 2023.
  21. ^ "Breakup: A Reporter's Marriage in a Central African War". Hurst. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  22. ^ "Darkness of Hearts". LARB. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  23. ^ "Breakup: A Marriage in Wartime". Penguin Random House. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  24. ^ "Frontline Club Award". Frontline Cub. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  25. ^ "Past Awards". IUCN. Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  26. ^ "Coded World". Channel News Asia. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  27. ^ "Deciphering India with Anjan Sundaram". Channel News Asia. Retrieved 10 September 2019.[dead link]
  28. ^ "Why I Risked My Life to Report on a Government Massacre". TED. 24 October 2017. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  29. ^ "Detecting a Dictatorship". Oslo Freedom Forum. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  30. ^ "From Wars Abroad to Peace at Home". New York Review of Books. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
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