Ed Vulliamy
Ed Vulliamy | |
---|---|
Born | 1 August 1954 |
Occupation(s) | Journalist, correspondent |
Known for | War reporting in Bosnia and Iraq |
Edward Sebastian Vulliamy (born 1 August 1954) is a British-born, Irish-Welsh journalist and writer.
Early life and education
Vulliamy was born and raised in
Career
1970s-1990s
In 1979, he joined Granada Television's current affairs programme World in Action, and in 1985 won a Royal Television Society (RTS) Award for a film about Ireland. In 1986, he joined The Guardian as a reporter, later Rome correspondent covering the Mafia and Southern Europe.
1990s-2000s
Bosnia
From there, he covered the Balkan wars, revealing a gulag of concentration camps. In August 1992, Vulliamy and British television reporter Penny Marshall managed to gain access to the notorious Omarska and Trnopolje camps, operated by the Bosnian Serbs for mainly Bosnian Muslim and Croat Catholic inmates.[2] Their graphic accounts of the conditions of the prisoners were recorded for the documentary Omarska's survivors: Bosnia 1992.[3] Discovery of the camps was credited with contributing to the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. He remained in Bosnia for the bulk of the remainder of the war, covering ethnic cleansing from the inside, and the siege of Sarajevo.
For his coverage of the war in Bosnia, Vulliamy won most major awards in British journalism and became the first journalist since the Nuremberg trials to testify at an international war crimes tribunal, the ICTY.[1] He testified for the prosecution in ten trials at the ICTY, including those of Bosnian Serb leaders Dr. Radovan Karadžić and General Ratko Mladić.
Other
In 1991, Vulliamy also covered the aftermath of the Iraqi
In 1994–95, and again from 1997 to 2003, Vulliamy was based in
Vulliamy covered the lead-up to the
From 2003 onwards, Vulliamy has worked along the US-Mexican border, reporting on organised crime, narco-traffic, cartel wars, security and migration.[1] This work led to his book Amexica: War Along the Borderline, which in 2013 won the coveted Ryszard Kapuściński Award – named in honor of the writer, creator and master of the genre.[4] He was among the first reporters to reveal the laundering of proceeds of narco-traffic by mainstream high-street banks (Wachovia and HSBC) on a massive scale. Reviewing 'Amexica' in the New York Times, Tamara Jacoby wrote: "Vulliamy, with a mix of irony and pathos, writes like a latter-day Graham Greene — the detached foreign observer who has seen it all yet really cares".[5]
Recent
His book The War is Dead, Long Live The War about the survivors of Bosnia's rape and concentration camps was shortlisted for the same Ryszard Kapuscinski prize in 2015. The book followed survivors of the concentration camps over 20 years after the war, examining the legacy of trauma, resilience and survival of genocide.
Vulliamy badly broke his leg in 2013, and wrote a detailed article from the patient's viewpoint about his prolonged treatment with the
Vulliamy also writes about football, music and painting. In 2014, he completed a book for Granta about Diego Velázquez's painting Las Meninas, Everything Is Happening: Journey Into A Painting, for Vulliamy's friend Michael Jacobs, who died suddenly of cancer before it was finished. In 2013, Vulliamy wrote liner notes for a CD box set of solo records by Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin and in 2017, contributed an essay to the book which accompanied the 50th anniversary edition, remixed by George Martin's son Giles, of The Beatles 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band', for Apple Records.
In 2018 he published a memoir through music, When Words Fail: A Life with Music, War and Peace, also for Granta, published in the United States as 'Louder Than Bombs' by the University of Chicago Press.[7] The book explores music and conflict, and features the last interview with B.B. King. In September 2022, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra - conducted by Ciarán Crilly with soloists and choir - premiered a Cantata about the Irish Civil War, 'Who'd Ever Think It Would Come To This?', for which Vulliamy wrote the libretto. The performance, with music composed by Anne-Marie O'Farrell, sold out to a standing ovation.[8] Vulliamy sings in an occasional blues/rock band, "Age Against the Machine".
In 2019, Vulliamy was by played the actor
In 2020, Vulliamy was made an Honorary Fellow of
Vulliamy is currently working in Ukraine, on resistance - military, musical and cultural - to the Russian invasion.
Awards
Vulliamy was awarded several major prizes in British journalism for his coverage of the war in Bosnia and work on organised crime. Among his awards for newspaper reporting are: Granada Television's What The Papers Say Foreign Correspondent of the Year', 1992; British Press Awards International Reporter of the Year, 1992 and 1997; Amnesty International Media award 1992; and the James Cameron Award in 1994.[citation needed]
Personal life
Vulliamy has two daughters.[10] Vulliamy has been a vegetarian since the age of eight after he questioned what happens to sheep.[11]
Selected publications
- Seasons in Hell: Slaughter and Betrayal in Bosnia, Simon & Schuster, London, 1994. ISBN 978-0-312-11378-0
- (with ISBN 978-1-85702-694-8
- Amexica: War Along the Borderline, Bodley Head, London, 2010. ISBN 978-0-374-10441-2
- The War is Dead, Long Live the War: Bosnia: The Reckoning, Bodley Head, London, 2012. ISBN 978-1-84792-194-9
- (with Michael Jacobs), Everything is Happening: Journey into a Painting, Granta, London, 2014.
- When Words Fail: A Life with Music, War and Peace, Granta, London, 2018. ISBN 9781783783366
- Louder Than Bombs: A Life with Music, War, and Peace, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2020. ISBN 9780226715407
References
- ^ a b c d "Private Passions: Ed Vulliamy". BBC. 2018. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
- ^ Tanner, Marcus (30 November 2017). "UK's Vulliamy Recalls Encounters with Belligerent Praljak". Balkan Insight. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
- ^ http://aje.io/avkd [dead link]
- ^ "About Ed Vulliamy". openDemocracy. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
- ^ "books - review - Jacoby-t". The New York Times. 7 November 2010.
- ^ Ed Vulliamy (13 December 2015). "How Comrade Ilizarov saved my leg". The Observer. Retrieved 13 December 2015.
- ^ "Louder Than Bombs: A Life with Music, War, and Peace". press.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
- ^ "Who’d Ever Think it Would Come to This?". civilwarcantata.ie. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
- ^ Mowbray, Nicole (24 September 2019). "How my work mistake caused an 'international incident'". The Irish Times. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
- Independent.co.uk. 23 October 2011.
- ^ "Fifty years as a vegetarian has kept me in tune with nature". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
External links
- Ed Vulliamy contributor profile at The Guardian and The Observer
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Ed Vulliamy at IMDb