Anjan Sundaram

Anjan Sundaram is a journalist and the author of Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo, which was published by Doubleday in 2014.

Early life and education

Sundaram was born in Ranchi, India, and grew up between India and Dubai. He studied at Rishi Valley School. After enrolling in the engineering programme at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, he moved to the United States and graduated from Yale University in 2005 with degrees in Mathematics. Sundaram earned a master's degree in mathematics as an undergraduate at Yale studying abstract algebra under the mathematician Serge Lang.[1]

He turned down several job offers, including a position with Goldman Sachs,[2] before he left to pursue journalism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Journalism

Sundaram worked as a "stringer" (a freelance journalist paid by the article) for the Associated Press and the New York Times in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He often worked in difficult and dangerous conditions, earning fifteen cents for every word that he published. In 2006 he won a Reuters journalism prize for his reporting from the Congo.[3]

Sundaram's first book is Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo. The book was extremely well-received,[4] with the American Booksellers Association naming it one of the best U.S. debuts of 2014, and has earned Sundaram comparisons to Ryszard Kapuściński and V. S. Naipaul.[5] Stringer was featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, who called the book "remarkable" and Sundaram "an impressive young man".[6]

Sundaram has reported from central Africa since 2005 for magazines such as Foreign Policy and Granta, in particular on the conflict in Congo, on Rwanda, and on foreign intervention in Africa.[7][8] A feature of his writing is his immersion in a place and his portrayals of what it feels like to be there.[9] In Stringer, Sundaram uses his story, and descriptions of his feelings, particularly a sense of confusion, to communicate to the reader the importance of what he witnesses. Themes he explores in his writing are the causes and effects of violence, dictatorship, and life in places in the world that are unreported. Sundaram has written about conflict minerals, which are used in electronics, and on the condition of victims of war like street children. His next book is about journalists he taught in Rwanda.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "The Assignment". Open Magazine. Retrieved 2013-11-02.
  2. ↑ "Anjan Sundaram turned down finance job to become journalist in Congo | The National". The National. 2013-02-16. Retrieved 2013-10-21.
  3. ↑ "Past Awards". IUCN. Retrieved 2013-10-21.
  4. ↑ "Stringer by Anjan Sundaram - Book - eBook". Random House. 2011-03-08. Retrieved 2013-10-21.
  5. ↑ "Upsides to 'I'". Columbia Journalism Review. 2014-02-05. Retrieved 2013-02-23.
  6. ↑ "The Daily Show, Anjan Sundaram". The Daily Show. Retrieved 2014-02-23.
  7. ↑ "The Things They Carried: The Congolese Rebel - Interview by Anjan Sundaram". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 2013-10-21.
  8. ↑ "Africa Shining". The Caravan. 2013-02-01. Retrieved 2013-02-23.
  9. ↑ "Signposts". Asian Age. 2013-03-25. Retrieved 2013-02-23.
  10. ↑ "The Daily Show, Anjan Sundaram". The Daily Show. Retrieved 2014-02-23.

External links