Author Bio
• Birth—November 13, 1973
• Where—Norwalk, Connecticut, USA
• Education—University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in London, England, UK
Lynsey Addario is an American photojournalist living in the UK. Her work often focuses on conflicts and human rights issues, especially the role of women in traditional societies. Her book, It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War, was published in 2015.
Life and career
Addario graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1995 and began photographing professionally in 1996. She started with the Buenos Aires Herald in Argentina and then began freelancing for the Associated Press, with Cuba as a focus.
Starting in 2000, she began photographing life in Afghanistan under Taliban control and has since covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, the Congo, and Haiti. She has covered stories throughout the Middle East and Africa, visiting Darfur or neighboring Chad at least once a month from August 2004.
She has photographed for the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, and National Geographic.
In Pakistan on May 9, 2009, Addario was involved in an automobile accident while returning to Islamabad from an assignment at a refugee camp. Her collar bone was broken, another journalist was injured, and the driver was killed.
Addario was one of four New York Times journalists who went missing in Libya from March 16–21, 2011. On March 18, the Times reported that Libya had agreed to free all four: Addario, as well as Anthony Shadid, Stephen Farrell, and Tyler Hicks; they were released three days later. Addario reports that she was threatened with death and mistreated:
Physically, we were blindfolded and bound. In the beginning, our hands and feet were bound very tightly behind our backs, and my feet were tied with shoelaces. I was blindfolded most of the first three days, with the exception of the first six hours. I was punched in the face a few times and groped repeatedly.
She called her treatment "incredibly intense and violent. It was abusive throughout, both psychologically and physically."
Later that year, in November, 2011, the New York Times wrote a letter of complaint on behalf of Addario to the Israeli government, after allegations that Israeli soldiers at the Erez Crossing had strip-searched and mocked her and forced her to go through an X-ray scanner three times despite knowing that she was pregnant. Addario reported that she had "never, ever been treated with such blatant cruelty." The Israeli Defense ministry subsequently issued an apology to both Addario and the New York Times.
Family
Addario is married to Paul de Bendern, a journalist with Reuters. They married in 2009 and have a son, born in 2011.*
Awards
Addario is the recipient of multiple awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship in 2009. Her work in Waziristan, Sept. 7, 2008, was part of work receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for International Reporting. She won the Getty Images Grant for Editorial photography in 2008 for her work in Darfur. She received the Infinity Award in 2002 by the International Center of Photography. (Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/20/2015 .)
* Read Addario's "What Can a Pregnant Journalist Cover? Everything," in the January 28, 2015 New York Times Magazine online.