Anjan Sundaram

Anjan Sundaram is an author, journalist and television presenter whose work ranges from social injustice, conflict and dictatorship to technology and nature.

Anjan Sundaram
Born1983 
LanguageEnglish language 
Website
www.anjansundaram.com

Personal life

Sundaram was born in Ranchi, India, and grew up in Dubai. He studied at Rishi Valley School in India. After enrolling in the electrical engineering programme 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 mathematician and activist Serge Lang.[1] He then began to write, reporting for The New York Times and The Associated Press from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and India, among other countries.[2] He taught journalism in 2016 at Brockwood Park, an alternative school founded by Jiddu Krishnamurti in Hampshire, England. In 2018, he obtained a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, with a focus on postcolonial journalism.[3]

Books

Sundaram's first book Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo, a coming of age memoir that explores the neglect of the world's deadliest war in Congo, earned him comparisons to Ryszard Kapuściński and V. S. Naipaul.[4][5] Stringer 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.[6] A feature of Sundaram's writing is his immersion in a place and his portrayals of what it feels like to be there.[7][8][9] In 2015 a jury of journalists awarded him the annual Frontline Club prize for his war reporting from the Central African Republic.[10] He received a Reuters environmental journalism prize in 2006 for his reporting from the Democratic Republic of Congo.[11]

Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship, about the destruction of free speech and the rise of dictatorship in Rwanda, was published in January 2016. The book 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.[12] 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 describing it as "courageous and heartfelt."[13][14]

Television

Sundaram hosted a four-part series in 2016 called Deciphering India with Anjan Sundaram,[15] which explores the contentious rise of nationalism in India. The episodes were titled "Godmen", "The Sacred Cow", "The Great Indian Male" and "Identity".

He hosted a four-part television series called Coded World in 2019.[16] The four episodes explore how algorithms and artificial intelligence are changing humans. The series combines Sundaram's expertise in mathematics and journalism.

Talks

In 2016 he gave a talk called Detecting a Dictatorship at the Oslo Freedom Forum, about journalists who confronted Rwanda's authoritarian government.[17]

His TED talk in 2017, titled Why I risked my life to expose a government massacre, is about his reporting on remote conflicts. [18]

References
  1. "The Assignment". Open Magazine. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  2. "We are in this world together" (PDF). Brockwood Park School. Retrieved 16 September 2019.
  3. "Forgotten newsmakers : postcolonial chronicles of stringers and local journalists in Central Africa". University of East Anglia. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  4. "Stringer by Anjan Sundaram - Book - eBook". Random House. 8 March 2011. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  5. "Upsides to 'I'". Columbia Journalism Review. 5 February 2014. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  6. "The Daily Show, Anjan Sundaram". The Daily Show. Retrieved 23 February 2014.
  7. "Signposts". Asian Age. 25 March 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  8. "The Things They Carried: The Congolese Rebel - Interview by Anjan Sundaram". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  9. "A Place on Earth". Granta. 1 February 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
  10. "Frontline Club Award". Frontline Cub. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  11. "Past Awards". IUCN. Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  12. Lemarchand, René (2018). "Rwanda: the state of Research | Sciences Po Violence de masse et Résistance – Réseau de recherche". Sciencespo.fr. ISSN 1961-9898.
  13. "Rwanda's Big Brother". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 February 2016.
  14. "In Rwanda, a journalist opens his notebook to expose injustice". Washington Post. Retrieved 25 February 2016.
  15. "Deciphering India with Anjan Sundaram". Channel News Asia. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  16. "Coded World". Channel News Asia. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  17. "Detecting a Dictatorship". Oslo Freedom FOrum. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  18. "Why I Risked My Life to Report on a Government Massacre". TED. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
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