| Howard French | |
|---|---|
| Born | Howard Waring French October 14, 1957 Washington, DC |
| Occupation | journalist, author, photographer, Columbia University professor |
| Spouse(s) | Agnes French |
| Notable credit(s) | The New York Times; A Continent for the Taking (book) |
| Official website | |
Howard Waring French (born 1957) is an associate professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism as well as a journalist, author and photographer. He was most recently a senior foreign correspondent with The New York Times.
French taught at university in the Ivory Coast in the 1980s before becoming a reporter. He has reported extensively on the political affairs of Western and Central Africa. These reports were the basis for the book A Continent for the Taking.
French has also reported on the political and social affairs in China, where he covered on the government crackdown of dissent in the Dongzhou protests of 2005. His most recent work for The New York Times is centered on China where he was the paper's Shanghai bureau chief.
French was New York Times bureau chief for the Caribbean and Central America from 1990 to 1994, covering Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and numerous other countries.
From 1994 to 1998, French covered West and Central Africa for the Times, reporting on wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Central Africa, with particular attention to the fall of the longtime dictator of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko.
French became Tokyo bureau chief for the Times in 1999, after a year studying Japanese at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. He is presently collaborating with The New York Review of Books.
In addition to covering China as Shanghai Bureau Chief for the Times, French worked as a weekly columnist on regional affairs for The International Herald Tribune.
French is an internationally exhibited photographer, whose multi-year project, photographing the rapidly shrinking old quarters of Shanghai, "Disappearing Shanghai" has shown in Asia, Europe and the United States. Disappearing Shanghai will be published in book form in 2011, in collaboration with the novelist and poet, Qiu Xiaolong.
French is married. He and his family live in New York.