Lynsey Addario | Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("https://achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/","20200917235241","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1600386761"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic&display=swap" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">  <title>Lynsey Addario | Academy of Achievement</title> <meta name="description" content="Photojournalist Lynsey Addario has covered every major conflict and humanitarian crisis of our era, including wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Congo. Many of her award-winning stories have focused on the experience of women in traditional societies and children driven from their homes by war. Addario was a member of the New York Times team awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for the photographic essay “Talibanistan.” In making the award, the Pulitzer committee noted the perilous conditions under which the work was performed, but danger has been a part of Addario’s career from the beginning. She first visited Taliban-controlled Afghanistan over a year before 9/11. In Pakistan she survived a car crash that killed her driver. During the Libyan civil war, she was held prisoner for five days — beaten, groped, and repeatedly threatened with death. She has recounted her life and harrowing experiences in a bestselling memoir, It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War."/> <meta name="robots" content="index, follow"/> <meta name="googlebot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <meta name="bingbot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Lynsey Addario | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="Photojournalist Lynsey Addario has covered every major conflict and humanitarian crisis of our era, including wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Congo. Many of her award-winning stories have focused on the experience of women in traditional societies and children driven from their homes by war. Addario was a member of the<em> New York Times </em>team awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for the photographic essay “Talibanistan.” In making the award, the Pulitzer committee noted the perilous conditions under which the work was performed, but danger has been a part of Addario’s career from the beginning. She first visited Taliban-controlled Afghanistan over a year before 9/11. In Pakistan she survived a car crash that killed her driver. During the Libyan civil war, she was held prisoner for five days — beaten, groped, and repeatedly threatened with death. She has recounted her life and harrowing experiences in a bestselling memoir, <em>It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War. </em>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2019-11-05T18:02:35+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/addario-Feature-Image-2a.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@achievers1961"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/addario-Feature-Image-2a.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/","name":"Lynsey Addario | Academy of Achievement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2018-09-04T16:50:21+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-05T18:02:35+00:00","description":"Photojournalist Lynsey Addario has covered every major conflict and humanitarian crisis of our era, including wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Congo. Many of her award-winning stories have focused on the experience of women in traditional societies and children driven from their homes by war. Addario was a member of the New York Times team awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for the photographic essay \u201cTalibanistan.\u201d In making the award, the Pulitzer committee noted the perilous conditions under which the work was performed, but danger has been a part of Addario\u2019s career from the beginning. She first visited Taliban-controlled Afghanistan over a year before 9/11. In Pakistan she survived a car crash that killed her driver. During the Libyan civil war, she was held prisoner for five days \u2014 beaten, groped, and repeatedly threatened with death. 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role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/addario-Feature-Image-2a.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/addario-Feature-Image-2a-1400x560.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/addario-Feature-Image-2a.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Lynsey Addario</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Pulitzer Prize-winning Photojournalist</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-51746 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-photographer careers-photojournalist"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/WhatItTakes_addario-256-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">Journalists are targets in a way that we were never before. There are regimes who don’t want freedom of press. They don’t want journalists revealing what’s happening inside their country. They’ve seen that when they kill journalists or when journalists are killed, no one does anything ultimately.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Courageous Chronicler of the Human Cost of War</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> November 13, 1973 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>Lynsey Addario was born and raised in Westport, Connecticut, where her parents — both hairdressers — owned and operated a salon.  Lynsey enjoyed a somewhat unconventional upbringing, with her three sisters, her parents, and her parents’ friends, many of them gay or transgender. Her father eventually moved in with another man, and she sometimes speaks of her “three parents — one mom and two dads.”</p> <figure id="attachment_51941" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51941" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-51941 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/et-sidebyside-2280-dadpics_0003.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-51941 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1511" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/et-sidebyside-2280-dadpics_0003.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/et-sidebyside-2280-dadpics_0003-380x252.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/et-sidebyside-2280-dadpics_0003-760x504.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/et-sidebyside-2280-dadpics_0003.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51941" class="wp-caption-text">Left: The Addario family. Right: Young Lynsey Addario. Lynsey Addario was raised in Westport, Connecticut, in 1973, by eccentric and artistic Italian-American hairdressers. She is the youngest of four sisters. (Lynsey Addario)</figcaption></figure> <p>Her father gave her a used Nikon FG when she was about 12 years old.  She bought a book on photography and taught herself to use the camera.  As she tells it, she was too shy to photograph people, so she took pictures of flowers, cemeteries, and the night sky.  Although she loved taking pictures, she never studied photography formally.  After high school, she went to the University of Wisconsin, where she studied international relations and Italian, spending her junior year in Bologna, Italy.  In the ancient university town, she felt free to shoot on the street and to take pictures of people for the first time.</p> <figure id="attachment_51884" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51884" style="width: 2000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51884 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2000-mar-4-GettyImages-649158384.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51884 lazyload" alt="" width="2000" height="1345" data-sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2000-mar-4-GettyImages-649158384.jpg 2000w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2000-mar-4-GettyImages-649158384-380x256.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2000-mar-4-GettyImages-649158384-760x511.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2000-mar-4-GettyImages-649158384.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51884" class="wp-caption-text">March 4, 2000: A widow stands and sings during her afternoon chanting session at an ashram in Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, India. Lynsey Addario began photographing professionally for the <em>Buenos Aires Herald</em> in 1996. She then freelanced for the Associated Press in New York for several years before moving to New Delhi to cover South Asia. In 2000, she traveled to Afghanistan to document life and oppression under the Taliban. (Photo: Lynsey Addario)</figcaption></figure> <p>After graduation, she moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the intention of learning Spanish and trying to become a professional news photographer.  She approached a 100-year old English-language newspaper, the<em> Buenos Aires Herald</em>, but having no experience, she was repeatedly rebuffed.  As her Spanish improved and she continued to press the newsroom for an opportunity, she was told they would give her a job if she could find her way onto the film set where the pop star Madonna was shooting the film <em>Evita</em>.  Addario talked her way onto the set and, although the pictures she produced were, in her words, “terrible,” she was given a job at the <em>Herald.</em></p> <figure id="attachment_51846" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51846" style="width: 1144px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-51846 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT001-afghanistan-2000-confirm.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-51846 size-full lazyload" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5); font-weight: bold; font-size: 1rem;" alt="" width="1144" height="1644" data-sizes="(max-width: 1144px) 100vw, 1144px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT001-afghanistan-2000-confirm.jpg 1144w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT001-afghanistan-2000-confirm-264x380.jpg 264w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT001-afghanistan-2000-confirm-529x760.jpg 529w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT001-afghanistan-2000-confirm.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51846" class="wp-caption-text">October 2001, Islamabad, Pakistan: A demonstration of about a thousand people against the United States attack on Afghanistan the night before rallied in the capital city of Pakistan. A strong contingent of riot police was present and the demonstration broke up after an hour without incident. (Robert Harbison/The Christian Science Monitor)</figcaption></figure> <p>After a year with the <em>Herald</em>, she returned to the United States and settled in New York City, where she established herself as a freelance news photographer, working primarily for the Associated Press.  Three years later, her appetite for adventure undiminished, she moved to New Delhi, India, reporting for the <em>Christian Science Monitor</em>, <em>The Boston Globe</em>, and <em>Houston Chronicle</em>.  Her interest in women’s issues prompted a colleague to suggest she visit Afghanistan, where women were suffering under the oppressive rule of the Muslim fundamentalist Taliban regime.  She made her first trip to Afghanistan in 2000, documenting the experience of Afghan women and gaining knowledge of the country, which would soon prove invaluable.</p> <figure id="attachment_51903" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51903" style="width: 1800px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51903 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/WP-2003-APRIL-11-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT009A.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51903 lazyload" alt="" width="1800" height="1340" data-sizes="(max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/WP-2003-APRIL-11-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT009A.jpg 1800w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/WP-2003-APRIL-11-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT009A-380x283.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/WP-2003-APRIL-11-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT009A-760x566.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/WP-2003-APRIL-11-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT009A.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51903" class="wp-caption-text">April 11, 2003, Kirkuk, Iraq: Lynsey Addario photographing an Iraqi man as he is denied entry to an American-run hospital, after the boy sustained a bullet injury, and the Iraqi Kurdish police and American soldiers denied help. On Addario’s first trip to Iraq in 2003, she decided to go north to Kurdistan “to work around the edges” because she suspected she lacked the physical stamina to embed with the military invading Baghdad. (Photo: Chang W. Lee)</figcaption></figure> <p>On September 11, 2001, the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, based in Afghanistan, launched devastating terror attacks on the United States.  Anticipating direct hostilities between the United States and the regime in Afghanistan, Addario immediately relocated to neighboring Pakistan.  Entering Afghanistan covertly, she recorded the fall of the Taliban regime in the city of Kandahar.  As American and allied forces pressed their advance, Addario learned the survival skills of a war correspondent.</p> <figure id="attachment_51892" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51892" style="width: 1400px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51892 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-FALLUJAH-WEEK-AFTER-KIDNAPPING-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT017.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51892 lazyload" alt="" width="1400" height="931" data-sizes="(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-FALLUJAH-WEEK-AFTER-KIDNAPPING-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT017.jpg 1400w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-FALLUJAH-WEEK-AFTER-KIDNAPPING-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT017-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-FALLUJAH-WEEK-AFTER-KIDNAPPING-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT017-760x505.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-FALLUJAH-WEEK-AFTER-KIDNAPPING-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT017.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51892" class="wp-caption-text">April 2004: Addario on assignment in Fallujah, Iraq, the week after she was kidnapped near Fallujah. “We rounded a corner, and out my window, a man with a Kalashnikov walked like a hunter along the street. My stomach sank, and I knew it was too late. I looked at Jeffrey and pictured an American flag. I took off my <em>abaya</em> and threw it over his head, unsuccessfully trying to disguise him as a woman. By this time, our car had been cut off by a blue minivan, and dozens of armed men swirled around our vehicle, their faces wrapped in patterned red and white <em>kaffiyehs</em>, their black eyes darting back and forth like the men who had robbed me only months earlier — twice — near these roads. Were they the same men? I turned to Jeffrey: ‘We are going to die now.’ It was my only thought.”</figcaption></figure> <p>In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq to depose the regime of Saddam Hussein, and Addario — seeing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as crucial stories of her generation — followed the troops.  Following their initial victory over Saddam Hussein’s army, U.S. forces were drawn into a protracted counterinsurgency campaign. Addario recorded the experience of American G.I.s and the Iraqi population in vivid, unforgettable detail, spending most of the next two years in Iraq.   In 2004, she found herself in mortal danger when she was kidnapped and then released by Sunni insurgents in the village of Garma, near the embattled city of Fallujah.</p> <figure id="attachment_51891" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51891" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51891 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-august-GettyImages-691902902.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51891 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1485" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-august-GettyImages-691902902.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-august-GettyImages-691902902-380x248.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-august-GettyImages-691902902-760x495.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-august-GettyImages-691902902.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51891" class="wp-caption-text">August 18, 2004: Young Sudanese refugees at Oure Cassoni camp in Bahai, Chad. In March 2003, after decades of tension, fighting erupted in Sudan’s western Darfur region between Sudanese government forces and rebel groups such as the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. Over the next few months, tens of thousands of Darfuris fled. Government troops and allied militia forces, called the Janjaweed, attacked villages and internally-displaced-persons camps, systematically raped the women and murdered whole communities. To ensure mass destruction, forces burned homes and poisoned water wells. (Photo: Lynsey Addario/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>Having earned a formidable reputation as a war photographer, Addario traveled to Africa for the first time to document the refugee crisis in Darfur.  There she first encountered the sight of an endless file of destitute, starving refugees marching across the parched earth in search of shelter, food, and safety.  She would return to Africa many times to report on the continent’s conflict zones, but more and more, wherever she went, she turned her camera on the innocent non-combatants displaced by war.</p> <figure id="attachment_51900" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51900" style="width: 1400px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51900 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-DARFUR-SUDAN-mesla.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51900 lazyload" alt="" width="1400" height="933" data-sizes="(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-DARFUR-SUDAN-mesla.jpg 1400w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-DARFUR-SUDAN-mesla-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-DARFUR-SUDAN-mesla-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-DARFUR-SUDAN-mesla.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51900" class="wp-caption-text">August 19, 2004: Lynsey Addario photographs SLA rebels in Darfur, Sudan. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)</figcaption></figure> <p>Addario was living in Istanbul, Turkey in 2006 when she met the newly appointed chief of the Reuters Turkish bureau, Paul de Bendern.  At age 33, Addario had never been able to sustain an intimate relationship amidst the constant travel and disruptions of her working life, but de Bendern, as a fellow traveling journalist, understood the demands of her career and a romance blossomed.</p> <figure id="attachment_51877" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51877" style="width: 1920px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51877 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-afghanistan-173rd-1afghan1000007381.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51877 lazyload" alt="" width="1920" height="1275" data-sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-afghanistan-173rd-1afghan1000007381.jpg 1920w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-afghanistan-173rd-1afghan1000007381-380x252.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-afghanistan-173rd-1afghan1000007381-760x505.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-afghanistan-173rd-1afghan1000007381.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51877" class="wp-caption-text">2007: Soldiers with the 173rd Battle Company on a battalion-wide mission in the Korengal Valley in the village of Yaka China. Captain Dan Kearney watches over his troops and controls close air support fire from above the village with a group of his soldiers and the JTACs. The second part of the mission is on the Abascar ridgeline, looking for caves and weapons caches and known Taliban leaders. Lyndsay Addario and journalist Elizabeth Rubin went to the Korengal Valley to embed with the 173rd Airborne to do a story on why, with all the firepower that we had, we weren’t winning the war. Addario and Rubin parachuted into the Korengal Valley, one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan at the time, and lived on the side of a mountain for two months at the Korengal Outpost. “But when we first asked the press guys with the military to go to that base, they said, ‘It is not a place fit for women. You cannot go.’ And Elizabeth and I said, ‘That’s exactly where we want to go. Now we really want to go.’”</figcaption></figure> <p>By 2007, Taliban forces had recaptured many areas of Afghanistan. Addario returned and was embedded for two months with the 173rd Airborne in the Korengal Valley.  Jumping from Blackhawk helicopters onto the side of a mountain with the rest of the battalion, she traveled for a week on foot with 70 pounds of equipment.</p> <figure id="attachment_51888" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51888" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51888 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-GettyImages-671215452.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51888 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1514" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-GettyImages-671215452.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-GettyImages-671215452-380x252.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-GettyImages-671215452-760x505.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-GettyImages-671215452.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51888" class="wp-caption-text">October 2007: Afghan elders from a “hostile” village in the Korengal Valley listen to American commanders explain why they had to attack their village with heavy air power the night before, while on a week-long mission to look for caves, weapons caches, and known anti-coalition members in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan. (Lynsey Addario)</figcaption></figure> <p>At the end of a two-month operation known as Rock Avalanche, the 173rd was ambushed by Taliban forces.  Addario documented the fighting at close range.  The death of many American soldiers that day — in particular, that of a friend, Sgt. Larry Rougle — made an indelible impression on Addario.  Returning from the front lines, she sought opportunities to portray the suffering of women and children in zones of conflict. In 2008, she received a grant from the United Nations Population Fund to document the use of rape as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly known as Zaire.</p> <figure id="attachment_51887" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51887" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51887 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-23-GettyImages-671214490.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51887 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1514" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-23-GettyImages-671214490.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-23-GettyImages-671214490-380x252.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-23-GettyImages-671214490-760x505.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-23-GettyImages-671214490.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51887" class="wp-caption-text">October 23, 2007: Soldiers with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team of the U.S. Army on a battalion-wide mission in the Korengal Valley of eastern Afghanistan. Sgt. John Clinard (left), Jay Liske (right), and soldiers from Battle Company carry the body of Sgt. Larry Rougle, of Utah, towards the medevac helicopter along the Abascar ridge in the mountains of Kunar. Rougle died less than an hour earlier while their unit, a scout team, was standing guard at the furthest tip of a ridge and ambushed by the Taliban. Two other soldiers, Sgt. Kevin Rice and Spc. Carl Vandeberge, were shot and wounded, and then medevaced out for surgery just minutes before. The 173rd’s tour ended in July 2008. Forty-two soldiers from the brigade lost their lives during the deployment. (Lynsey Addario)</figcaption></figure> <p>The following year would be a momentous one for Addario. Addario shared in the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting awarded to <em>The New York Times</em> staff for its coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  That same year she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship — the so-called “genius grant” — which pays the recipient a stipend of half a million dollars over a period of five years.  In making the grant, the MacArthur Foundation cited her depiction of “the underlying realities of war” in Iraq and Afghanistan and “the lives of women in male-dominated societies.”  That same year, while returning to Islamabad, Pakistan from an Afghan refugee camp, Addario was involved in a serious car accident.  Addario’s collarbone was broken and her driver was killed.  On a more positive note, in 2009, Lynsey Addario and Paul de Bendern married.</p> <figure id="attachment_51895" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51895" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51895 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-april-GettyImages-691931054.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51895 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1517" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-april-GettyImages-691931054.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-april-GettyImages-691931054-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-april-GettyImages-691931054-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-april-GettyImages-691931054.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51895" class="wp-caption-text">April 12, 2008: Rape as a Weapon of War. Kahindo, 20, sits in her home with her two children born out of rape, in North Kivu, in eastern Congo. Kahindo was kidnapped and then held for almost three years in the bush by six Interahamwe, who she claims were Rwandan soldiers. They each raped her repeatedly, and she had one child in the forest. She was pregnant with the second by the time she escaped. An average of 400 women per month were estimated to be sexually assaulted in the autumn of 2007 in eastern Congo. That said, many women never make it to treatment centers and are not accounted for in these statistics. (Photo: Lynsey Addario/Getty Images Reportage)</figcaption></figure> <p>De Bendern hoped to start a family, although Addario found it difficult to imagine balancing the demands of her career and motherhood.  At the same time, she became increasingly concerned with the challenges faced by mothers in the countries she visited.  Addario decided to use the support from the MacArthur Foundation to conduct a multi-country study of maternal health in the developing world.  Her travels took her to Sierra Leone, a West African nation with one of the highest rates of maternal mortality.  There, she encountered one of the most harrowing stories of her career.</p> <figure id="attachment_51896" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51896" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51896 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2010-may-for-bio-GettyImages-672379496.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51896 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1517" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2010-may-for-bio-GettyImages-672379496.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2010-may-for-bio-GettyImages-672379496-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2010-may-for-bio-GettyImages-672379496-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2010-may-for-bio-GettyImages-672379496.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51896" class="wp-caption-text">May 20, 2010: Maternal Mortality. Blood continues to leak from Mamma Sessay, 18, shortly after she delivered the second of twins, as her sister, Amenata, helps clean her body at the Magburaka Government Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone. Sessay said repeatedly, “I am going to die,” as she lay on the delivery table. Sessay was forced to marry at 14 years old, to a man who was about 50, and had her first child at 15. Sessay delivered the first of the twins the day before at the Moyorgboh Maternal Child Health post near her village, but her contractions ceased for the second child. She then traveled by canoe and ambulance from her village to the Magburaka Government Hospital, where she delivered the second baby with the aid of midwives and hospital nurses. Mamma Sessay had postpartum hemorrhaging and died as she was brought to the one doctor in the hospital. Sierra Leone has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, with roughly 900 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births; an average of five women die per day in childbirth, and one in eight women in Sierra Leone will face a lifetime risk of death during childbirth. The high rate is due to several causes: an extremely high rate of teenage pregnancy, which leads to complications during delivery; little access to hospitals or medical doctors, coupled with ill-equipped facilities; and a cultural preference for traditional birthing attendants over hospitals. (Lynsey Addario and Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>In a government hospital, Addario met Mamma Sessay, an 18-year-old woman who had traveled by canoe and ambulance for over six hours between giving birth to a pair of twins.  When Mamma Sessay hemorrhaged after giving birth to the second child, there was no doctor available to treat her in time.  Addario pleaded with the hospital staff to treat the woman, but in the end, all she could do was record the final moments of Mamma Sessay’s life and accompany her body on the long journey home.  Addario’s essay “Dying to Give Birth: One Woman’s Tale of Maternal Mortality” appeared in <em>TIME</em> magazine in 2010.  The story provoked worldwide outrage and inspired the Merck pharmaceutical company to commit half a billion dollars to a new initiative combating maternal mortality — Merck for Mothers.</p> <figure id="attachment_51899" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51899" style="width: 380px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="size-medium wp-image-51899 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2280-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT006A-2011-taken-prisoner-with-nytimes-colleagues-1-380x253.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-51899 lazyload" alt="" width="380" height="253" data-sizes="(max-width: 380px) 100vw, 380px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2280-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT006A-2011-taken-prisoner-with-nytimes-colleagues-1-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2280-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT006A-2011-taken-prisoner-with-nytimes-colleagues-1-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2280-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT006A-2011-taken-prisoner-with-nytimes-colleagues-1-380x253.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51899" class="wp-caption-text">March 11, 2011: (L to R) Yuri Kozyrev of <i>TIME</i> magazine, Lynsey Addario and Tyler Hicks of <em>The</em> <i>New York Times</i>, and freelancer Nicki Sobecki stand during a pause in the fighting in Ras Lanuf, Libya. In March 2011, Addario was in Libya covering the civil war when she, along with a local driver and three other journalists on assignment with <em>The</em> <i>New York Times</i>, ventured into the exposed frontline town of Ajdabiya. Captured by Gaddafi’s soldiers, the four journalists were bound, blindfolded, and taken away; their driver died. (Photo by John Moore and Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>In 2011, Addario traveled to Libya to cover the civil war raging between the regime of Muammar Gaddafi and anti-Gaddafi rebels.  Addario and her colleagues entered the country behind rebel lines and followed the advance of the insurgency from one city to another.  On March 15, Addario and three colleagues from <em>The New York Times</em> encountered a government counter-offensive and were returning to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi when they were overtaken by Gaddafi’s troops and taken prisoner.</p> <figure id="attachment_51879" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51879" style="width: 1900px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51879 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/3-panel-PERSONAL007.png"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51879 lazyload" alt="" width="1900" height="640" data-sizes="(max-width: 1900px) 100vw, 1900px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/3-panel-PERSONAL007.png 1900w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/3-panel-PERSONAL007-380x128.png 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/3-panel-PERSONAL007-760x256.png 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/3-panel-PERSONAL007.png"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51879" class="wp-caption-text">Lynsey Addario married Paul de Bendern, a journalist with Reuters, in 2009; October 2011: Addario, 27 weeks pregnant, photographs children near the Israeli border in the Gaza Strip; Addario with her son, Lukas, born in 2011.</figcaption></figure> <p>Gaddafi had told his troops all foreign journalists were spies and should be killed.  The soldiers moved their bound and blindfolded captives from place to place, threatening them with imminent execution.  The male hostages were repeatedly beaten, and Addario was subjected to humiliating pawing and groping.  After five days, while the outside world waited for news of their fate, the journalists were released into the custody of Turkish diplomats.</p> <figure id="attachment_51897" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51897" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51897 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2013-jan-17-GettyImages-649329618.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51897 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1522" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2013-jan-17-GettyImages-649329618.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2013-jan-17-GettyImages-649329618-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2013-jan-17-GettyImages-649329618-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2013-jan-17-GettyImages-649329618.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51897" class="wp-caption-text">January 17, 2013: Syrian women prepare a meal for the funeral of a Free Syrian Army fighter who had been killed across the border in Aleppo while his family members sought refuge in the Lebanese village of Saadnayel, in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. The United Nations estimates that the number of Syrian refugees currently in countries bordering Syria has risen to 600,000, with around 200,000 already registered in Lebanon. (Lynsey Addario/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>While in captivity, Addario resolved that if she ever returned safely to her husband, she would try to have a child.  At age 37, to her surprise, she conceived almost immediately.  Concerned that editors would stop offering her assignments if they know of her pregnancy, she hid it as long as possible. While carrying her child, she traveled on assignment to Senegal, Kenya, Somalia, and Gaza.  On one of the last days of the year, she gave birth to a healthy boy, Lukas de Bendern, in a London hospital.</p> <figure id="attachment_51842" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51842" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51842 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2016-2280-chuol-and-mary.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51842 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="802" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2016-2280-chuol-and-mary.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2016-2280-chuol-and-mary-380x134.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2016-2280-chuol-and-mary-760x267.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2016-2280-chuol-and-mary.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51842" class="wp-caption-text">The Displaced: (Left)<i> </i>Lynsey Addario with Chuol’s mother and great-grandmother. “Inside, Mary’s grandmother, Chuol’s great-grandmother, sat fanning the flies away. I introduced myself through our translator and immediately presented them with a tattered copy of <em>The</em> <em>Times Magazine</em>,<em> </em>with Chuol on the cover, that I had brought with me from London; it was an image of him fishing in the swamps near Nyal. The grandmother began to rock back and forth, reaching for the magazine, crying, “My son, my son.” (Right) October 2016: Chuol watching his mother, Mary’s, video message on Lynsey Addario’s laptop in Kakuma Refugee Camp. Seven-year-old Chuol was living with his parents, grandparents, and relatives in a village near the city of Leer in South Sudan when a power struggle between President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar triggered a civil war in 2013. When the fighting came to Chuol’s village, women were raped and men murdered. His father and grandfather were burned alive. Chuol fled into the swamp with his mother and grandmother. In the chaos, his mother ran in another direction and was lost. For months, they did not know if she was dead or alive. Chuol and his grandmother were able to get to a camp in Juba, South Sudan’s capital, before traveling to another camp in Kenya to join other relatives. Addario met Chuol in September 2015 when she accompanied a team of journalists to document his story for <em>The New York Times Magazine</em>’s virtual reality film <em>The Displaced. </em>(Photographic Credit: Lynsey Addario for <em>The New York Times</em>)</figcaption></figure> <p>For three months, she devoted herself to caring for her newborn son, but in the following year, she covered stories in Mississippi, Mauritania, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, and India. Her work has now taken her to more than 70 countries. Although she still reports on armed conflicts, such as the civil wars in Syria and South Sudan, she now keeps her distance from the front lines, for the sake of her family.</p> <figure id="attachment_52217" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-52217" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-52217 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/et-LondonSummit_1370.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-52217 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1375" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/et-LondonSummit_1370.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/et-LondonSummit_1370-380x229.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/et-LondonSummit_1370-760x458.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/et-LondonSummit_1370.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-52217" class="wp-caption-text">2017: Awards Council members Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist, and General David H. Petraeus, USA, former Director of the CIA, present the Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award to Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario following her presentation at historic Cliveden House in Berkshire.</figcaption></figure> <p>Her photographic essays — many exploring the lives of refugees and displaced children — appear regularly in <em>TIME</em>, <em>The New York Times</em> and <em>National Geographic</em>.  In 2015, she published a remarkable autobiography, <em>It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War</em>.  Steven Spielberg is reportedly developing a motion picture based on her autobiography, to star Jennifer Lawrence.  Meanwhile, the real Lynsey Addario’s latest book is simply titled <em>Of Love and War</em> (2018).</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2017 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.photographer">Photographer</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.photojournalist">Photojournalist</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> November 13, 1973 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p>Photojournalist Lynsey Addario has covered every major conflict and humanitarian crisis of our era, including wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Congo. Many of her award-winning stories have focused on the experience of women in traditional societies and children driven from their homes by war.</p> <p>Addario was a member of the<em> New York Times </em>team awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for the photographic essay “Talibanistan.” In making the award, the Pulitzer committee noted the perilous conditions under which the work was performed, but danger has been a part of Addario’s career from the beginning.</p> <p>She first visited Taliban-controlled Afghanistan over a year before 9/11. In Pakistan she survived a car crash that killed her driver. During the Libyan civil war, she was held prisoner for five days — beaten, groped, and repeatedly threatened with death. She has recounted her life and harrowing experiences in a bestselling memoir, <em>It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War. </em></p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/wp9z-ZbRXUI?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_43_34_10.Still016-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_43_34_10.Still016-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Courageous Chronicler of the Human Cost of War</h2> <div class="sans-2">Buckinghamshire, England</div> <div class="sans-2">October 21, 2017</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Your work has taken you into war zones and many dangerous situations. In 2011, you and three <em>New York Times</em> colleagues were taken prisoner in Libya. Can you tell us how that came about?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/NOWpVRX9QrU?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_40_49_11.Still013-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_40_49_11.Still013-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Lynsey Addario: We were in Libya covering the uprising, and the way it worked was the front line — Gaddafi’s troops and his military — were pushing in from the west, and the journalists and the rebels were pushing from the east. And the front line was basically a kilometer-and-a-half — or maybe a mile — in between the two. So all the journalists, including myself, who were covering the rebels entered Libya illegally without visas. That was the only way to get in and cover the rebels. So that was an issue, obviously, because aside from being shot at or mortared, the real danger was running into Gaddafi’s troops because none of us had visas. And Gaddafi, he kept saying repeatedly that all journalists are spies and if you see a journalist, you should kill them. So his military was trained to basically kill journalists.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_51948" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51948" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51948 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-GettyImages-110404331.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51948 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1514" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-GettyImages-110404331.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-GettyImages-110404331-380x252.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-GettyImages-110404331-760x505.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-GettyImages-110404331.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51948" class="wp-caption-text">March 11, 2011: Photographers Lynsey Addario (L), John Moore (2nd-L), and Tyler Hicks (R) run for cover during a pro-Gaddafi airstrike near the town of Ras Lanuf, Libya. <em>The</em> <em>New York Times</em> photographers Lynsey Addario, Tyler Hicks, videographer Stephen Farrell, and Beirut bureau chief Anthony Shadid were reported as missing on March 15, 2011, while covering wartorn Libya near the oil town of Ras Lanuf in the eastern part of the country. (© Getty)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>So when we were covering the front line, I was there for about two weeks, and basically covering it as cities fell, and pushing forward with the rebels. On this particular day — it was March 15, 2011 — I was working with Tyler Hicks, Anthony Shadid, and Steve Fellow, and we were in two vehicles. That is a preventative mechanism; in case something goes wrong, we have a backup vehicle. So Anthony and Steve were in one car, and Tyler and I were in another. The front line was pushing in very quickly. We knew the city would fall. As a war correspondent, you learn these signs. Mortar rounds were literally falling onto our position, the position we were with, with the rebels. And civilians were fleeing. It was the first time that we actually saw women and children out of their houses, and they were leaving <em>en masse</em>. And there were leaflets falling warning people to leave.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/l_7XE29vBnU?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_42_27_04.Still014-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_42_27_04.Still014-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>So at that point, we were covering the fighting on the front line, and we pulled back into the city, just to sort of regroup. And when we pulled back, Anthony and Steve’s driver stopped the car and dumped all of their stuff on the sidewalk and said, “My brother was just shot. I quit.” So now we are four journalists and Mohammed, our driver, in one small car. So we filled the car with all of our stuff. And the other danger, of course, is that you have four journalists and four people who have very different needs. So everyone sort of wants to do something different, and the front line’s coming closer and closer. At that point, we went back to the hospital and checked civilian casualties and did some reporting there. And more and more people were filing out of the city. I remember I saw a group of French reporters and photographers — Laurent Van der Stockt, who’s a photographer who’s been shot, I don’t know how many times — and he looked at me and said, “It’s time to go. I’m leaving.” And at that point, I said, “Oh, no. If you’re leaving, we’re definitely dead.” Because you never let a French reporter leave before you. That’s just sort of a joke.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_51953" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51953" style="width: 1280px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51953 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT014.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51953 lazyload" alt="" width="1280" height="854" data-sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT014.jpg 1280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT014-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT014-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT014.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51953" class="wp-caption-text">Lynsey Addario working alongside Anthony Shahid, the Beirut bureau chief for <em>The Times</em>, and other journalists.</figcaption></figure> <p>So he leaves, and we all get back in the car, and there was a decision made to go back to the front line. I was very uncomfortable at this point because I felt like it was time to go. But I guess, as the only woman in the car, I also felt like maybe I’m just being scared and maybe my instincts were off. Because, for whatever reason that day, I had a really bad premonition. So we went back to the front line; everyone jumped out of the car. I was trying to shoot, but I was kind of paralyzed by fear. At that point, Mohammed, our driver, got a call saying Gaddafi’s troops had entered the city, and we started hearing sniper fire. So once you hear sniper fire, you know they’re in the city because they’re not that far. So we stayed, continued working, and our driver started saying, “It’s really time to go.” He was sort of screaming. Then finally, we got back in the car after I think he had gotten two phone calls at this point from his brother saying, “Where are you? You have to leave.” His brother was working for the BBC.  So we finally got in the car, and we started to pull back.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/8cNTP1rIfpw?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_29_05_21.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_29_05_21.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>As we were heading back toward Benghazi, I saw soldiers on the horizon, and they were wearing uniforms, so it was different from the rebels. And it didn’t make sense because, of course, Gaddafi’s troops were coming from the west, and we were heading east. So I said, “You guys, I think those are Gaddafi’s guys.” And they started laughing, and they were like, “No, there’s no way. They’re behind us.” And suddenly, as we got closer and closer, it was clear that it was Gaddafi’s guys, and they had flanked the desert. So they went all the way around the desert and cut the road in front of us.</p> <p>So everyone started screaming something different. Tyler was screaming, “Don’t stop!” Anthony and Steve — everyone was just screaming. Mohammed stopped the car at the checkpoint and jumped out and said, “<em>Sahafa</em>! We’re journalists.” At that point, it was complete mayhem. The rebels that we had been covering started opening fire on the checkpoint, and we were literally in a wall of bullets. Mohammed, I never saw him again. He jumped out the left. I was sitting on the left-hand side behind him. Tyler, Anthony, and Steve jumped out the right, and as soon as they got out of the car, one of Gaddafi’s troops was on each of them, sort of pulling at them. And because there were bullets everywhere, I was sitting in the car, and as the only woman — this happened to me in Iraq, too — I sort of always get left. They’re like, “Do we kidnap her? Do we leave her? What is she? Who is she?” So they sort of just left me.</p> <p>So I’m sitting in the car, thinking I have to get out of the car because it’s not armored. I knew that the bullets were coming from behind me. So I made a decision to crawl across the back seat and jump out the same side as my colleagues. When I got out, one of Gaddafi’s guys was on me, pulling at my cameras. I was instinctively just pulling back, sort of fighting with him in the middle of the crossfire. Then finally, I said, “Okay, I have to. Obviously, this is ridiculous.” So I let go of my cameras. I let go of <em>one</em> camera. And the other camera, I still had because I remember I was trying to pull the disks out as I was making a run for it. I remember I pulled them out, and I don’t remember if I ever was able to put them — I usually put them in my bra. But I remember pulling them out as I was running. Anthony tripped and fell in front of me. I remember looking at him, and he was screaming for his life. And I thought, “Okay, this is as bad as I think it is. I’m not just overreacting.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_51956" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51956" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51956 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2005-IRAN-LYNSEYIRAN2005.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51956 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="3420" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2005-IRAN-LYNSEYIRAN2005.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2005-IRAN-LYNSEYIRAN2005-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2005-IRAN-LYNSEYIRAN2005-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2005-IRAN-LYNSEYIRAN2005.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51956" class="wp-caption-text">2005: Addario covers Iranian presidential election at Husseiniyeh Ershad polling center in Tehran. (© Balazs Gardi)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>So we all made it behind the cement building. And when we got behind the cement building, the adrenaline was going. All of Gaddafi’s guys were sort of surging with adrenaline and very angry and brutal. They all starting asking for our passports. So we handed over our passports. Now, I had two passports on me because I always have two passports as a journalist. But for whatever reason, I think that day — because, in a war zone, we travel with everything in case you can’t get back to a city — I had both passports. So I had one in my underwear and one in my waist pack. So when they asked for my passport, I handed one over.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/6UhrpQp4XsQ?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_27_07_00.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_27_07_00.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>They told us to lie face down on the dirt. And each one of us had a barrel of a gun put to our heads. I think they were AKs because they were long barrels. We were sort of looking up. I remember looking over and we were all begging for our lives. They were about to execute us. They had taken my shoes off — I had Nike sneakers on — and tied my ankles together and my wrists behind my back. At that point, the commander came over and said in Arabic, which Anthony later translated, “You can’t shoot them. They’re American.” So they didn’t shoot us, and instead, they continued tying us up, and they emptied all of our pockets and found my disks. Never found my — I had $8,000 in cash and an extra passport in my underwear that I had for six days. They never found it. So then they placed me and Steve in one vehicle and Anthony and Tyler in another, in the middle of the front line, and kept us there tied up for like four or five hours and basically just laughed at us while bullets and bombs and everything landed on us and we couldn’t do anything. We were just sitting there, basically waiting to die.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What were you thinking? What thoughts went through your mind?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/GL3PRY_umMA?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_42_49_13.Still015-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_42_49_13.Still015-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Lynsey Addario: What am I doing here? Why do I care about Libya? I can’t believe I’m going to die in a place like Ajdabiya! What’s my grandmother going to think when she finds out that I died in Libya? Will I see my cameras? What were my last frames? I hope they were good. Will they make it? You know, it’s not a linear — What will my husband think? My parents? And then it’s this guilt. You know that you’re putting the family through extraordinary trauma if you even live. And if you don’t live, it’s the same. Then one of Gaddafi’s troops came over. Actually, before Steve got in the car with me, one of Gaddafi’s guys came over and sat down next to me. I thought he was going to bring me water because often in the Middle East when they see a woman, they bring you water. And he just clocked me square in the face! I remember seeing stars and thinking, “Oh, it’s like the cartoons.” Because it’s the first time, of course, that I’ve been punched in the face. Because as a woman, I’ve never been punched. And I thought, “Okay, now I know where the cartoons come from.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/LczZSa7ZxEg?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_37_33_28.Still012-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_37_33_28.Still012-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Steve got put next to me, and then another troop came over — another soldier came over — and he was talking to his wife in Arabic. I understand a fair amount of Arabic. So he had his wife on the phone, and he put the phone to my ear while I’m tied up and just sitting there. And he said — and his wife said — I think she said, like, “You’re bad!” And I said, “No, I’m a journalist.” And she’s like, “You’re bad!” She kept saying, like, “You’re bad!” And I was like, “No. <em>Sahafa</em>! <em>New York Times</em>. Journalist.” And she was just like — and then he started laughing and took the phone away like, “See? I proved my point. We have prisoners.” Then they moved us from the front line and threw us in the back of tanks, and that’s where groping really started. We were in the back like sardines in a tank, and I had a guy behind me spooning me. We were all kind of lined up like this, and the guy behind me was very aggressively touching me. Anthony, Steve, and Tyler were all getting beaten. Steve was having a gun sort of shoved between his legs. We were all too scared to talk, so we just said — Steve had a sort of tactic where he said, “Is everyone here?” And we all just said “yes” to make sure that we were still together because we were blindfolded.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_52010" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-52010" style="width: 1651px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-52010 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/its-what-i-do.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-52010 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="1651" height="2532" data-sizes="(max-width: 1651px) 100vw, 1651px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/its-what-i-do.jpg 1651w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/its-what-i-do-248x380.jpg 248w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/its-what-i-do-496x760.jpg 496w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/its-what-i-do.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-52010" class="wp-caption-text">2016: <em>It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War </em>by Lynsey Addario is a memoir of how the relentless pursuit of truth, in virtually every major theater of war in the twenty-first century, has shaped her life. What she does, with clarity, beauty, and candor, is to document, often in their most extreme moments, the complex lives of others. It’s her work, but it’s much more than that: it’s her singular calling. Watching uprisings unfold and people fight to the death for their freedom, Addario understands she is documenting not only news but also the fate of societies. <em>It’s What I Do</em> is more than just a snapshot of life on the front lines; it is witness to the human cost of war.</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/jKo03IzlXdE?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_27_29_12.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_27_29_12.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Then we were put in prison in Sirte. We were tied to the sides of the military aircraft and flown to Tripoli and beaten. We were beaten on the tarmac. I think I was groped by pretty much every man in Libya. By the time we got to this VIP prison in Tripoli, we still didn’t know where we were, but we assumed as much. The foreign ministry took us over, and there was a guy who spoke perfect English who sort of said, “Okay, now you’re with the government of Libya, and we won’t hurt you anymore.” Whatever. But of course, we were put in, like, an apartment with bars on the windows. They said, “If you look out the window, we’ll kill you.” And they brought us food and water. But on the fifth day, the no-fly zone was obviously implemented because we started hearing French jets. At that point, we thought, “Okay, they’re definitely going to kill us now because there’s no reason not to kill us.” So it was sort of the uncertainty. You’re not told anything.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/kdWcEU4tnpI?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_31_43_05.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_31_43_05.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Anthony, very wisely, took a remote control and turned the TV on, and he found CNN. And the four of us — our pictures were on the screen. It said something like, “The Libyan government cannot ascertain the whereabouts of these four journalists,” or something to that effect. I looked at the screen, and I started to cry. I just burst into tears because I realized they were denying that they had us, so of course, everyone thought we were dead. So I said — I started crying, and I said — “Don’t you have families? Just let us call our families. You can keep us as long as you want, but at least let us make a phone call.” And they were like, “Madam, stop crying. Madam, please stop crying. It’s okay. We can’t let you make a phone call.” And I was like, “We have families!” So then they put us in the other section of the apartment and in rooms. When we came back, like an hour later, there was just a wire dangling where the TV was. So of course, they cut us off. But then, that night, we were woken up at like two in the morning, and they said, “Okay, you each get one phone call.” I couldn’t remember my husband’s phone number. Of course, my mother never can find her phone in her purse, and my dad doesn’t answer the phone. So I thought, “Who am I going to call?” So I was nominated to call <em>The New York Times</em>.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_51958" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51958" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51958 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-march-1-CHADIANREBELS051.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51958 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1517" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-march-1-CHADIANREBELS051.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-march-1-CHADIANREBELS051-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-march-1-CHADIANREBELS051-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-march-1-CHADIANREBELS051.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51958" class="wp-caption-text">March 1, 2008: Chadian rebels hang out at their base camp along the Chad Sudan border in West Darfur, Sudan. The Chadian rebels are among those who tried to overthrow the Chadian government in February and are given logistical support from the Sudanese government, including food, fuel, and shelter. They claim they are building up weapons and manpower and planning a new assault on Chadian President Idriss Deby. (Credit: Lynsey Addario)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>You couldn’t remember your husband’s phone number?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: No. Everything was on my phone, and everything had been stolen from us. We lost everything.</p> <p><strong>What did you say when you got <em>The New York Times</em> on the line?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Gs2tU5ardl8?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_31_07_10.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_31_07_10.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Lynsey Addario: It was Susan Chira, and I know Susan, and she was like, “Lynsey!” And I was like, “Susan!” And there was a guy — I mean I was tied up and blindfolded, and they made the call and put the phone to my ear. And there was a guy literally, like, breathing on me to say, “Don’t you dare say anything.” And I said, “Susan, first of all, can you tell my husband I love him. I forgot his phone number.” And I said, “We’re fine.” And she was like — I think that’s basically — apparently, they had gotten a warning that we would call. And I just said like, “We’re okay. We’re alive.” Yeah, that’s it. I didn’t want to say — I was scared to say anything. I mean the thing about being captured is that you’re terrified to say anything or do anything. So there was a lot of psychological trauma that went into it, a lot of psychological torture. They threatened us with execution over and over. And the second — they would do things like start to be very nice to us and then beat us again. Or do something like, “Tonight you will die,” but say it while they’re sort of touching my face in a very tender way. So really twisted sort of ways of manipulating your mind so you’re just terrified all the time.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_51959" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51959" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51959 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2008-july-4-PAKISTAN-ADDARIOPAK080216.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51959 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1514" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2008-july-4-PAKISTAN-ADDARIOPAK080216.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2008-july-4-PAKISTAN-ADDARIOPAK080216-380x252.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2008-july-4-PAKISTAN-ADDARIOPAK080216-760x505.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2008-july-4-PAKISTAN-ADDARIOPAK080216.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51959" class="wp-caption-text">July 4, 2008: Pakistani Taliban commander Namdar Afridi, 40, gives an interview while surrounded by his security detail at his compound in Bar Kambar Khel, in the Pakistani tribal area near the border of Afghanistan. Namdar Afridi is the head of the “Suppression of Vice and Promotion of Virtue” group, which commands nearly 20 percent of the tribal area. Since the start of the American-led war in Afghanistan in October 2001, the Taliban has gradually infiltrated the areas surrounding Peshawar, making the tribal areas inaccessible and Peshawar tenser. In 2009, Lynsey Addario was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship and was part of the<em> New York Times</em> team to win the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for her photographs in “Talibanistan.” (Credit: Lynsey Addario)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p><strong>How many days were you gone?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: That was about a week, so it was six days.</p> <p><strong>Has that experience affected your work?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Yeah. I read a lot of stories about people’s kidnapping and torture, and in my opinion, we got off very easy. It was fine. We were very lucky to be alive. Mohammed, our driver, was killed. So it affects my work in the sense that now I’ve been kidnapped twice. So now when I’m working in a place like Iraq — even if it’s northern Iraq and someone who hasn’t survived those two things would just drive on these roads and say, like, “Oh, this is great” — but of course, for me, all I see is ISIS around every corner. Or I envision the road filling up with insurgents because I’ve seen that, and I’ve been in that situation. So it affects my work in that sense, that I’m more paranoid than I ever was, certainly than I was in my 20s.</p> <p><strong>You also survived a bad car accident. Do you ever feel like you’ve used up a lot of your nine lives?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario:  I think I’ve used like 25 of them. I’ve definitely used up my nine lives.</p> <figure id="attachment_51961" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51961" style="width: 1936px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-51961 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_2139.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-51961 lazyload" alt="" width="1936" height="2592" data-sizes="(max-width: 1936px) 100vw, 1936px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_2139.jpg 1936w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_2139-284x380.jpg 284w, /web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_2139-568x760.jpg 568w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_2139.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-51961" class="wp-caption-text">Once pregnant, Addario carried on with her regular assignments, and went to Senegal and Saudi Arabia, then did a major assignment in Somalia, and then Gaza. “I had lived my life in defiance of fear, but now that I had this tiny being to care for, I thought about mortality differently: I worried constantly that something might happen to him, something I had never felt for myself. When I thought about his future, I hoped he would lead a life as full of opportunity and happiness and experiences as mine had been. My dreams for my child were the same ones that I knew compelled so many women around the world to fight for their families against the most unimaginable odds.”</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>How did it change your work to have a baby?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235241if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/8cAOnAktZ4U?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_14_18_17.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Addario-Lynsey-2017-MasterEdit.00_14_18_17.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Lynsey Addario: Look, I think by the time I decided to have a baby, I had been kidnapped twice, was in a car accident, two of my drivers were killed, my two friends were killed in Libya — Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros — Joao Silva had lost his legs. A lot happened in very quick succession. I think I naturally felt like I needed to pull back, and maybe that’s one of the reasons why I decided to get pregnant then because I was 37, and I had Lukas at 38. So I have not been covering combat recently. I haven’t covered combat in a few years. I’ve been in South Sudan. I’ve been under fire. But I’m not like — it’s a very different time, also, in history. A lot of the reasons why I was going into those war zones was because American troops were there and on the front line, and I felt like it was very important for the American audience to see what was happening. So for me, in my head, there were very specific reasons why I was going to certain places. I’m not just a war junkie. I don’t just go wherever there’s combat. Now I feel like I was very torn about not being in Mosul, but I didn’t go because I felt like it was extremely dangerous, and I just couldn’t do that to my family.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Let’s talk about your childhood. Your parents were hairdressers, is that right?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Yes, they’re both hairdressers — all three of them. My dad’s gay, and I have two dads now.</p> <p><strong>Is there anything that you learned from them when you were young that you still think about today?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I was very lucky because I grew up in a very eccentric household. I grew up literally raised by hairdressers and that whole community. We had an open house. We sort of welcomed anyone and everyone, particularly people who were marginalized and people who were — we had a lot of gay people, a lot of cross-dressers. I would come home from school when I was seven years old, and there would be a man dressed as a woman playing show tunes on the piano. I mean we never really knew what to expect. But that sort of upbringing — my parents taught us never to be judgmental, to accept everybody, to respect everybody. I think that was fundamental, that sort of upbringing, and that set of values was fundamental for me now, being a journalist, because I walk in and out of so many people’s lives. I try not to be judgmental. I try to bring that to my work. My parents also said, “Don’t follow money. Follow your heart and you’ll be successful.” That’s all they told me and my sisters. We’re four sisters.</p> <p><strong>Are any of your sisters photographers?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: We’re all artists, but no one’s a photographer.</p> <p><strong>Can you remember how you first picked up a camera?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I was 12 years old, around 12. I could have been 11; I could have been 13. But I was at my father’s house in Connecticut, and he had an old Nikon FG, and I saw it. A client of his had given him the camera. I picked it up and asked what it was because I wasn’t really familiar with film cameras or any cameras. And he just gave it to me. Then I remember going out and I bought a book on how to photograph. Then I started just teaching myself. I would sit on my roof in Connecticut and try and photograph the moon, night after night. I was, of course, too terrified to approach people. So I photographed flowers and cemeteries and then never studied photography.</p> <p>When I went to the University of Wisconsin, I studied international relations and Italian — but I did a junior year in Italy, in Bologna. And there I really started photographing. One of the first things I did when I went there was look for a darkroom. I photographed, and I think — because I felt like anonymity could sort of protect me from my shyness, so I was able to shoot on the streets. It was the first time I really felt comfortable approaching people and kind of working on the streets. Then I went back to Wisconsin and graduated and moved to Argentina. I wanted to learn Spanish. And when I moved to Argentina, just went into a newspaper and just basically asked for a job out of nowhere. I mean I had no training, no experience. And that’s really where I started photographing.</p> <p><strong>Did you get the job?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I did not get the job. I kept going in, and there were two men who worked in the photo department, and they just sort of chain-smoked cigarettes and kept shooing me away and saying, “Come back when you learn Spanish.” So I learned Spanish. I learned it very quickly because I spoke Italian. I went back six weeks later and said, “Okay, I’m ready.” They rolled their eyes and said okay. So they would give me fake assignments, like make up the address of a place and say, “Go here and take a picture of this house.” And I always went, and I came back.</p> <p>Finally, they said, “Look, Madonna is filming <em>Evita</em> at the Casa Rosada (the executive mansion of Argentina) in Buenos Aires, and if you can sneak on set and get a picture of Madonna, we’ll give you a job.” So I was like, “Okay,” and I had no idea how I would do that because I had my little Nikon FG camera with a 50 mm lens, and I had never photographed anything like that before. So I went to the set and there was a perimeter around the Casa Rosada. Fortunately, there were New York-bouncer kind of guys guarding the set. I went up, and I said, “Hey, can I come in?” And they were like, “Where’s your press pass?” And I was like, “Look, I don’t have a press pass, but let me explain that my entire future depends on you, and if you let me in, I’m going to be famous. I promise. One day I’m going to be famous.” And the guy just looked at me, and he’s like, “Oh, my God, you’re so pathetic.” So he let me in. He was like, “Okay, go.”</p> <p>So I went in and — I think I was 21 — I went in and I got on the press riser, and of course didn’t realize that I needed like a 600 mm lens to see anything. So I stood up and there were all these TV cameras and proper photographers with big lenses. I got up, and I put my camera to my face, and I couldn’t see anything. Madonna was like a million miles away.</p> <p>So this guy just taps me on the shoulder, and he’s like, “Hey kid, just give me your camera back.” And I was like, “What’s he talking about?” Because I didn’t even know that you could take my lens off and put a Nikon camera on the back of his lens. So he did it for me. I basically just handed him my camera and he did it. I looked in the viewfinder and there was Madonna in the Casa Rosada, and I kind of squealed with happiness, and I got a picture, and I got a job.</p> <p><strong>Did they print the picture?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: They did. It’s a horrible picture. You could only see like the balcony. You can’t even see her.</p> <p><strong>Did you get paid?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Yeah, I was getting $10 a picture.</p> <p><strong>Did you really know you were going to be famous?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: No, of course. I was just saying that. I knew that I was determined. I still am sort of relentless about everything.</p> <p><strong>Why do you think you were drawn to photograph conflict, as opposed to the moon or landscapes?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I was never attracted to conflict <em>per se</em>. It’s not like I woke up and said, “I want to be a war photographer.” It was never like that. For example, I was living in India in 2000, and I had a roommate at the time. I was renting a room from the Dow Jones bureau chief, Ed Lane. He came back from a trip to Afghanistan, and he said, “You’re a woman and you care about women’s issues. Why don’t you go to Afghanistan and photograph women living under the Taliban?” And I thought, “Yeah, you’re absolutely right. That’s exactly what I should do.” It never dawned on me that I should be scared because I thought, “My intentions are pure. I’m literally going to speak to women about how they feel.” And I got a visa, so I went with permission.</p> <p>I went, and so it was more curiosity. That was the first time that I went into one of those situations, and it was fine. And then, after September 11th, it made sense to go back because I had all this experience in the region. So I went to Pakistan right after September 11th, and then I ended up going undercover at the fall of the Taliban in Kandahar. And then, by the time the Iraq War was on the horizon, I just thought, “Okay. Well, of course, I’m going to go there because I’ve already been in Afghanistan and this seems to be a continuation of what’s happening in my generation.” So I went.</p> <p>So before I knew it, I was going from conflict to conflict. But it wasn’t really war, it was more the humanitarian issues, the human rights abuses — being there to bear witness to everything that’s happening and providing a document for people back at home who didn’t have access to these places.</p> <p><strong>Is that how you define your work? Providing a document?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Pretty much. Like educating people, showing people what’s happening, being there to record it. When we look back in 50 years, to have an archive of the conflicts of our time after 9/11.</p> <p><strong>You’ve had amazing success with that determination, but did you miss out on things as well?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Until I was in my early 30s, I basically had no personal life. I spent most of my time in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Congo, Lebanon, Libya, just going from assignment to assignment and just never — I would go home. I had boyfriends, but I sort of would leave them at home and come back every three months and say, “Hi,” and do my laundry and leave because there was no other way to do it. It’s such a competitive job. It’s also — I was in a very different mind frame. I mean when I would spend three months in Iraq, it was hard to come out and just sort of relate and try and have a life, when all I wanted to do was go back.</p> <p><strong>How did your parents feel with you going into these danger zones?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: You know, I was raised by hairdressers so, fortunately, when I started doing this work, the first time I went to Afghanistan, it was under the Taliban, and it was in 2000. I was 26. I remember calling my mother the night before I left for Afghanistan, and I said, “Mom, I’m going to Afghanistan tomorrow.” And she was like, “Okay, honey. Have fun.” Because of course, she had no idea what Afghanistan is. This is before September 11th. So luckily, my parents didn’t really follow the news from the beginning when I first started covering war, and I never told them anything. I would just sort of go and work, and they didn’t religiously read <em>The New York Times</em>. It wasn’t until probably around 2003, around the time of Iraq, where they started really watching my pictures on the front page, and in <em>The New York Times,</em> and they started getting worried. But I was always like, “No, it’s fine. It’s totally safe.” Then I got kidnapped right outside of Fallujah in April of 2004. That was the first time my father ever said to me, “Please come home.” They never ever said anything, and they’ve never said anything since then.</p> <p><strong>Did you go home?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I did not go home right away because I had a theory that I if I was going to be a photographer who covered war consistently, I didn’t want my response to trauma to be to leave because I felt like that was a bad precedent to set. So I thought I should stay and try and work through it a little and then go. So that’s what I did.</p> <p>I keep going back because I feel a responsibility. Once one has the tools to cover war, it’s a very unique set of tools. Not that many people know how to cover war and stay alive and cover it in a way that’s fair, in a way that lets people tell their stories without inserting themselves into the story. I think it’s important to keep doing it.</p> <p><strong>You’ve done so many things and won so many prizes. What are you most proud of?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I’m tortured. So I’m not really a proud person. I’m always conflicted about what I’m not doing. I feel privileged that I was able to be there on the front lines of Afghanistan and Iraq. It means a lot to me that I was there because I feel like it was at a very important time in history. Journalists provided a very important role for the public, in the sense that, at the beginning of the insurgency in Iraq — when things started to go wrong in Iraq — it was really the fact that journalists were there to document all those things. I think it was very, very important, especially for the American public, to understand what happened there.</p> <p><strong>You’re petite. You’re five-feet-one, and you’re often working in a man’s world. What do they think when they meet you?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Most people just sort of underestimate me. They look at me, and they’re like, “Oh no, a girl’s with us!” I’m always having to prove myself. I don’t really say anything because I feel like it’s “Show. Don’t tell.” So no one says anything. The troops, especially, don’t say anything because they don’t say <em>anything</em>.</p> <p><strong>Can you remember a moment when you captured an image that you were especially pleased with or proud of?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I did a two-month embed in the Korengal Valley with the 173rd Airborne. <strong> </strong>I think the commanders were ambivalent to allow women to go in and do that embed because they weren’t sure that we could physically keep up. We were lucky because Colonel Anderson, who was the commander in charge there, had a philosophy of transparency and of letting journalists in, and he allowed me and Elizabeth Rubin in. We ended up staying two months, living on the side of the mountain in the Korengal. At the end, there was a battalion-wide operation called Operation Rock Avalanche, and it was pretty incredible. We were airlifted onto the side of a mountain, jumped out of Blackhawks, and walked for basically a week with everything on our backs. At the end, we were ambushed by the Taliban. It’s a series of photos that, to me, I feel like, for one of the first and only times in my almost 20 years covering war, that I was really at the heart of war. I think it was because we invested so much time to get to know the troops, and we really were out there with them as naked as they were in terms of the battlefield. I think it meant a lot to me, and it <em>means</em> a lot to me.</p> <p><strong>Weren’t you afraid you were going to die?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Yeah, I’m often afraid I’m going to die. I think there have been several times in my life where I was pretty sure I was dead. That was one of them.</p> <p><strong>What do you take with you when you go to a war zone?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Literally? Great boots, hiking boots, headlamp, car inverter, extra batteries, satellite phones, satellite dish, my cameras, helmet, flak jacket, protein bars, running shoes, jogging ball.</p> <p><strong>How about the attitude? What’s going on in your head that you need to bring?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: You have to be ready for everything and anything, and sleeping on the floor, sleeping on the side of the mountain, being cold, being hungry, not having coffee. I remember one morning on that particular embed, we had been two, three days on the side of the mountain. I had such a bad headache, and I couldn’t figure out why, and we couldn’t make a fire because the Taliban was very close. So I kept taking ibuprofen and nothing was working. Finally, I opened the MRE and there was a pack of Maxwell House — just the grounds. I just dumped the whole pack into my mouth, and the headache was gone in like 15 minutes. I was like, “Oh, my God.” You just have to be ready for anything.</p> <p><strong>How many pounds do you carry at a time? Your cameras alone are heavy.</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Yeah. My cameras are probably 35 pounds. The flak jacket — I don’t know how much it is; maybe ten pounds. Helmet, then my kit — like on a mission like that, I stripped everything down. So I had two camera bodies in case one breaks. That’s the other thing, is that you’re jumping and diving and falling, so you have to have backup gear, a lot of batteries. We couldn’t charge anything, so I just brought a lot of batteries, and I think I had three lenses. The whole kit probably was 70, 60 pounds — maybe 70.</p> <p><strong>You must be stronger than you look. Are you?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I don’t know. I’m me, so I don’t know how strong the next person is. I’ve had to be strong because I have no choice. It’s not like you can go into these situations and ask someone for help. I never wanted to be the woman who needed help, so I always made sure I trained a lot and worked out all the time.</p> <p><strong>Did you keep working while you were pregnant?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I did. I worked a lot. I worked until I was 28 weeks. I was in Senegal, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Somalia, and Gaza.</p> <p><strong>Did you have morning sickness?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I did. The first three months, I was really, really exhausted and sick, but I was so terrified about being pregnant because I thought, “What will happen to my life, and how will I continue to do this job?” that I sort of forced myself to go out there.</p> <p><strong>Did people react differently to a pregnant American war photographer?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I didn’t really gain any weight until I was like five, six months. Luckily, a lot of the places I work, I wore an <em>abaya. </em>When I’m working, I work mostly in Muslim countries so I dress the part. No one knew until — I remember I was on a road trip with Joe Klein. I’d come back to the U.S. and I was doing a story for <em>TIME</em> magazine. It was sort of a pre-election story, and we were driving across America. It was between my fifth and six months, and suddenly my stomach sort of popped in the middle of that trip, and I hadn’t told him I was pregnant. I remember suddenly making a decision like, “I think I have to tell him because he’s going to think I’m binge eating or something.” So I went downstairs, and I was like, “Joe, good morning.” And he doesn’t look up, and he’s like, “Do you want breakfast?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I’m almost six months pregnant.” And he said, “What’s your problem?”</p> <p>But in my head, there were a host of problems. I didn’t know a single female photographer who had been pregnant, who had had a child, so I was really scared. I didn’t want to tell anyone. I didn’t want to tell my editors because I didn’t want them to make decisions on my behalf about how long I should work. It was a decision I wanted to make with my husband, and we did that together.</p> <p><strong>We talked to the author Sebastian Junger this morning, and he was talking about post-traumatic stress.</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Yeah, yeah. I’ve talked to him about that. You can imagine; we have very good conversations.</p> <p><strong>How did you process yours?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Actually, Sebastian and I had a very interesting conversation last year at the <em>Vanity Fair</em> Summit — before, in the green room — because we were talking about PTSD, and he asked me about Libya and after. I said, surprisingly, I sort of came out of that. I mean I think it’s relative. I think I was pretty much okay until Tim (Hetherington) and Chris (Hondros) were killed in Libya a month later because then I had survivors’ guilt, which triggered a whole different host of issues. But when I came out, I was okay. Sebastian has done a lot of research on the topic and obviously wrote the book <em>Tribe</em>. And he talks about communities. We talked about my family. I come from an incredible family who is so supportive and loving and tightknit, and we communicate and share. And he said, “You know, I think that support network is one of the reasons why you probably don’t have textbook PTSD.” A lot of people have said that to me, and a lot of it has to do with my support network. I have a great family and a great husband. So I process things very actively.</p> <p><strong>You have captured such brutality, such sadness. You’ve seen rooms full of corpses, shards of skulls. Do those images that you’ve captured stay in your head?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: The really gruesome ones don’t stay in my head as much as the stories — like the personal stories, surprisingly. I don’t have nightmares. Usually, by the time I go to sleep, I’m so tired, I don’t remember anything. But it’s certain moments that stay in my head, and they’re not necessarily the real gruesome ones. It’s more like I remember a woman bleeding to death in front of me because she had just given birth, and she hemorrhaged, and there was no doctor — just watching her literally bleed to death, and I couldn’t do anything. Those are the moments that sort of plague me.</p> <p>After that ambush in the Korengal Valley, there’s carrying (Sgt. Larry) Rougle’s body across this very barren landscape. I remember, in that moment, thinking, “What are we doing here? There are no people here. Why are we fighting a war in the middle of the mountains? There’s nothing!” So I remember. There are moments, and I remember my exact thoughts at the time.</p> <p><strong>Can you tell us the story of Mamma Sessay, the woman you saw die in Sierra Leone? </strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I had won a MacArthur Fellowship and wanted to focus on maternal mortality and why women die in childbirth. At that point, about 500,000 were dying every year in childbirth around the world. So I went to Sierra Leone because it was a country with a very high maternal death rate. The first hospital I went to in the provinces, it was the Magburaka, the government hospital. I went in, and I met this woman, Mamma Sessay, and she had been pregnant with twins and delivered the first baby in the village. And the second baby wouldn’t come out. So she had to take a canoe across a river and an ambulance for six hours across bumpy roads. I know the roads because I then took them back with her corpse.</p> <p>We got to the hospital, and when <em>she</em> got to the hospital, that’s when I met her, and she was fine, totally coherent and in pain and tired. We talked at length about her life. She was studying, and her dad pulled her out of school to get pregnant. She finally delivered the second baby and started hemorrhaging. As she was bleeding, I kept saying to the midwives, “I think she’s bleeding too much,” and I’m shooting. I did a video of it as well, so you can hear my voice in the video saying, “She’s bleeding.” There was one doctor in the entire province, and he was in surgery.</p> <p>So at some point, I got very uncomfortable, and I left, and I went into the surgical ward, put on scrubs, went into surgery, and said to the doctor, “I think there’s a woman dying.” And he looked at me like, “Well great, I’m in surgery.” I went back to Mamma Sessay and encouraged the midwives to carry her to the doctor, and they literally brought her. She was barely conscious at this point. By the time the doctor came out of surgery, she passed. So then I followed her mother and sister back to the village with her, and that picture was the funeral.</p> <p><strong>What kind of effect do you think your photos for that story had?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Well, that is one of the very, very few times in my life where there actually was a tangible effect that I know about. I was very lucky because <em>TIME</em> magazine published an eight-page story on Mamma Sessay. It’s hard. Maternal health is a very hard sell. Most people don’t want to publish stories on maternal mortality because most people don’t realize that 800 women die every day in childbirth. And that’s extraordinary.</p> <p>There was a doctor, Dr. Naveen Rao, and he works at Merck, the pharmaceutical company. When that story came out, he happened to see it, and he went online and watched the video of Mamma Sessay dying. He was so moved by the story that he just started showing the pictures to the board members at Merck quietly. He didn’t call a meeting. They were so upset that they set aside half a billion dollars to fight maternal death based on that story. That was good. That’s like the only time in my life. That was Merck for Mothers.</p> <p><strong>We’d like to talk about another famous picture of yours. It’s two women in blue, framed by the horizon in the desert.</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: This is in Badakhshan, Afghanistan in 2009. I was doing a story again on maternal health. It was sort of the prelude to the story on Mamma Sessay. There’s a pregnant woman on the side of the mountain with her mother. Her water had just broken, and their car broke down. Her husband’s first wife had died in childbirth, so he had borrowed a car to get to the hospital, which was a three-hour drive, and I don’t know how many hours on the back of a donkey. So they had a car, but it broke down. So I ended up taking the family to the hospital and she delivered.</p> <p><strong>And everyone was okay?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Yeah.</p> <p><strong>How has photography changed since you started shooting?</strong></p> <p>Photography has changed because there’s a real proliferation of photography. I know this because I gave a talk a few days ago that in 2017 more than one trillion photographs will be taken by people on their smartphones and with real cameras. So the question is, “How do you distill the good from the bad and the poignant from the average?” I think we’re so inundated by images. And I think that’s the difference from when I first started because we didn’t have digital cell phones. I started in 1980 really, in the 80s, and professionally, in the early 90s. So I think I’m competing with many more images. My readers and my viewers — the viewers of my photographs — are bombarded by images, so when they look at my picture, it really has to stand out, and it has to rise above the rest. So it’s harder.</p> <p><strong>Do you think it will change again, as you look out in the future?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Look at virtual reality. That’s probably the biggest development that we’ve seen in some time. Video has become more ubiquitous, but also virtual reality, and the fact that you can literally walk into a three-dimensional scene. That, I think, for a still photographer, is a bit jarring because how do you compete with something like that? But I do believe in the still image. I believe that it’s still possible to send a very powerful message with a still photo.</p> <p><strong>So they will last even though there is this insatiable demand for video?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I think so. I think there are still certain photos that hold the world accountable for certain issues.</p> <p><strong>There was a time when it was safer to be a war photographer, wasn’t it? Is it more dangerous now? </strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Journalists are targets in a way that we were never before. There are regimes who don’t want freedom of press. They don’t want journalists revealing what’s happening inside their country, showing that there are huge human rights abuses going on, that people are killing their own people. And so I think that there’s a real — and they’ve seen that when they kill journalists or when journalists are killed, no one does anything ultimately. Everyone mourns and says it’s a crime, but there’s no UN resolution. To kill a journalist! We recently fought to get it made into a UN resolution. But ultimately, no one’s ever held accountable if you kill a journalist. So I think it’s just easier to literally shoot the messenger because then you can continue doing whatever you’re doing. I think, in terms of ISIS, and in a lot of the countries — Al-Qaeda, a lot of the fundamentalist groups — they’ve learned that they can make a lot of money by kidnapping journalists. So there’s a bounty, you know. They get ransom. So it’s a huge financial game to kidnap a journalist, and there are a lot of governments who pay. It’s a business.</p> <p><strong>Was there a moment in your career that you could describe as a turning point? I’ve heard people say, “Once that happened, there was no turning back. I knew this is what I was going to do.”</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: I think that happened on day one. I was lucky. I meet so many young men and women at universities or when I’m giving talks. And they say, “I don’t know what to do. Should I be a photographer?” I never had that question. I knew from the minute I started photographing for newspapers and for the Associated Press that that’s all I wanted to do.</p> <p><strong>What do your mother and your father and your grandmother think of your chosen career?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: They’re grateful I’m not covering as much war. I’m doing a lot more humanitarian stuff, a lot of refugee stories. I’m covering Syrian refugees in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey. Yes, I’ve been into Syria, but I’m not consistently covering war the way I did. They’re relieved.</p> <p><strong>So if you had not taken up photography, what would you have done, do you think?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Maybe write. It’s the totally opposite part of my brain. When I wrote my memoir, for example, it was really fun. I loved it. I loved the process of writing and literally sitting with all those experiences that I hadn’t tapped into in years.</p> <p><strong>With what you’ve achieved, some people would be content to stop now. Do you feel like you have to keep challenging yourself?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel guilty — unfulfilled — if I’m not shooting for like a week, much less a year or two years. It’s very much a part of me, and what I’m driven to do.</p> <p><strong>What’s your favorite camera now?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Well, I had a Nikon 810, but they just sent me the 850, and I haven’t even used it. I got it literally yesterday, but I can’t wait to use it.</p> <p><strong>Do you have a whole room full of cameras?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Yeah. I have a whole, like, half a room.</p> <p><strong>How many countries have you worked in? A dozen? Three dozen?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: No. In April of 2004, when I was kidnapped outside of Fallujah, I made a list. I was so sure I should have been dead that I made a list of all the countries I visited. And that includes countries I visited and didn’t work in, but there weren’t that many. It was 63. Now it’s 14 years later, and I’ve definitely been to more. So it’s probably around 70, 72. I should make another list. I made another list after Libya actually, but I don’t remember what it was.</p> <p><strong>People often talk about the eye of a photographer. Finding the frame you want. When you’re aiming your camera, what are you looking for?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Oh, it’s torture. Because when I’m photographing someone or something, I’m like a hunter. I’m looking. I’m looking at light; I’m looking at expression. There’s composition, and if it doesn’t come together, it’s very, very frustrating. But you could never explain that to someone who’s not a photographer. I don’t know how to explain it. I know what I’m looking for, and I know when it comes together, but I can’t explain what it is actually.</p> <p><strong>How important is it to be patient, just to stay there?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Patience is everything for me, and light, and making people feel comfortable, and staying long enough —if you can — that people finally relax. Because there’s no way you can walk into a room with a camera and people don’t change their body language. So it takes a while for them to get back to the way they were.</p> <p><strong>Can you tell us one little story of waiting something out, just for this one frame?</strong></p> <p>Lynsey Addario: Oh, my God. It’s all I do; now to think of like one. It’s hard to say a specific thing. Patience! For example, I photographed women in Afghanistan for <em>National Geographic</em>. That story took more than two years because I didn’t normally need permission from the women, but I needed permission from their fathers, their brothers, their husbands. And every woman I asked, sometimes she had to think about it. So literally, I just had to sort of chip away and get to the point where I had enough women who agreed and their families agreed. It was just a real lesson in patience because it took two years. And a lot of these things, no one understands. For a photographer — it’s like actually taking a picture is like five percent of what I do. And the rest is research, reading, contact, setting things up, making contact, getting access, making people feel comfortable, doing the reporting, doing the interviews, getting the captions. It’s not getting there physically, the logistics on the ground. I mean, literally, taking a picture is the easiest part of my job.</p> <p><strong>Well, thank you for talking with us. It’s been amazing.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Lynsey Addario Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>26 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5322580645161" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/its-what-i-do.jpg" data-image-caption="2016: <i>It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War</i> by Lynsey Addario is a memoir of how the relentless pursuit of truth, in virtually every major theater of war in the 21st century, has shaped her life. What she does, with clarity, beauty, and candor, is to document, often in their most extreme moments, the complex lives of others. It’s her work, but it’s much more than that: it’s her singular calling. Watching uprisings unfold and people fight to the death for their freedom, Addario understands she is documenting not only news but also the fate of societies. <i>It’s What I Do</i> is more than just a snapshot of life on the front lines; it is witness to the human cost of war." data-image-copyright="its what i do" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/its-what-i-do-248x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/its-what-i-do-496x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2008-july-4-PAKISTAN-ADDARIOPAK080216.jpg" data-image-caption="July 4, 2008: Pakistani Taliban commander Namdar Afridi, 40, gives an interview while surrounded by his security detail at his compound in Bar Kambar Khel, in the Pakistani tribal area near the border of Afghanistan. Afridi is the head of the Suppression of Vice and Promotion of Virtue group, which commands nearly 20 percent of the tribal area. Since the start of the American-led war in Afghanistan, in October 2001, the Taliban has gradually infiltrated the areas surrounding Peshawar, making the tribal areas inaccessible and Peshawar tenser. In 2009, Lynsey Addario was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship and was part of the <i>New York Times</i> team to win the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for her photographs in "Talibanistan." (Photo by Lynsey Addario)" data-image-copyright="wp-2008 july 4 - PAKISTAN --- ADDARIOPAK080216" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2008-july-4-PAKISTAN-ADDARIOPAK080216-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2008-july-4-PAKISTAN-ADDARIOPAK080216-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.60263157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/et-LondonSummit_1370.jpg" data-image-caption="2017: Awards Council members Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist, and General David H. Petraeus, USA, former Director of the CIA, present the Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award to Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario following her presentation at iconic Cliveden House in Berkshire." data-image-copyright="et-LondonSummit_1370" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/et-LondonSummit_1370-380x229.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/09/et-LondonSummit_1370-760x458.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-afghanistan-173rd-1afghan1000007381.jpg" data-image-caption="2007: Soldiers with the 173rd battle company, on a battalion-wide mission in the Korengal Valley, in the village of Yaka China. Captain Dan Kearney watches over his troops and controls close air support fire from above the village with a group of his soldiers and joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs). The second part of the mission is on the Abascar ridgeline, looking for caves and weapons caches and known Taliban leaders. Lyndsay Addario and journalist Elizabeth Rubin went to the Korengal Valley to embed with the 173rd Airborne to do a story on why, with all the firepower that we had, we weren’t winning the war. Addario and Rubin parachuted into the Korengal Valley, which was one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan at the time, and lived on the side of a mountain for two months at the Korengal Outpost. “But when we first asked the press guys with the military to go to that base, they said, ‘It is not a place fit for women. You cannot go.’ And Elizabeth and I said, 'That’s exactly where we want to go. Now we really want to go.'”" data-image-copyright="wp-afghanistan-173rd-1afghan1000007381" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-afghanistan-173rd-1afghan1000007381-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-afghanistan-173rd-1afghan1000007381-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-march-1-CHADIANREBELS051.jpg" data-image-caption="March 1, 2008: Chadian rebels hang out at their base camp along the Chad Sudan border in West Darfur, Sudan. The Chadian rebels are among those who tried to overthrow the Chadian government in February and are given logistical support from the Sudanese government, including food, fuel, and shelter. They claim they are building up weapons and manpower and planning a new assault on Chadian President Idriss Deby. (Credit: Lynsey Addario)" data-image-copyright="2008 march 1 - CHADIANREBELS051" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-march-1-CHADIANREBELS051-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-march-1-CHADIANREBELS051-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2005-IRAN-LYNSEYIRAN2005.jpg" data-image-caption="June 17, 2005: Lynsey Addario covers the Iranian presidential election in the Husseiniyeh Ershad polling center in Tehran." data-image-copyright="GB_IRN_05_0157" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2005-IRAN-LYNSEYIRAN2005-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2005-IRAN-LYNSEYIRAN2005-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-23-GettyImages-671214490.jpg" data-image-caption="October 23, 2007: Soldiers with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team of the U.S. Army on a battalion-wide mission in the Korengal Valley of eastern Afghanistan. Left, Sgt. John Clinard, and right, Jay Liske, and soldiers from Battle Company, carry the body of Sgt. Larry Rougle, of Utah, towards the medevac helicopter along the Abascar ridge in the mountains of Kunar. Rougle was killed less than an hour prior while their unit, a scout team, was standing guard at the furthest tip of a ridge and ambushed by the Taliban. Two other soldiers were shot and wounded, Sgt. Kevin Rice and Spc. Carl Vandeberge, and medevaced out for surgery minutes before. The 173rd’s tour ended in July 2008. Forty-two soldiers from the brigade lost their lives during the deployment. (Lynsey Addario)" data-image-copyright="U.S. Troops Fight Taliban in Korengal Valley" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-23-GettyImages-671214490-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-23-GettyImages-671214490-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3380281690141" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_2139.jpg" data-image-caption="While pregnant, Addario carried on with her regular assignments and went to Senegal and Saudi Arabia, then did a major assignment in Somalia, and then Gaza. “I had lived my life in defiance of fear, but now that I had this tiny being to care for, I thought about mortality differently. I worried constantly that something might happen to him, something I had never felt for myself. When I thought about his future, I hoped he would lead a life as full of opportunity and happiness and experiences as mine had been. My dreams for my child were the same ones that I knew compelled so many women around the world to fight for their families against the most unimaginable odds.”" data-image-copyright="IMG_2139" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_2139-284x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/IMG_2139-568x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT014.jpg" data-image-caption="Lynsey Addario working with Anthony Shahid, Beirut bureau chief for <i>The New York Times</i>, and other journalists." data-image-copyright="wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT014" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT014-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT014-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-GettyImages-110404331.jpg" data-image-caption="March 11, 2011: Photographers Lynsey Addario (left), John Moore (second to left) and Tyler Hicks (right) run for cover during a pro-Gaddafi airstrike near the town of Ras Lanuf, Libya. <i>The New York Times</i> photographers Lynsey Addario, Tyler Hicks, videographer Stephen Farrell, and Beirut bureau chief Anthony Shadid were reported as missing on March 15, 2011 while covering wartorn Libya near the oil town of Ras Lanuf in the eastern part of the country. (© Getty)" data-image-copyright="New York Times Journalists Missing In Libya" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-GettyImages-110404331-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-GettyImages-110404331-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66315789473684" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/et-sidebyside-2280-dadpics_0003.jpg" data-image-caption="Left: The Addario family. Right: Lynsey Addario was raised in Westport, Connecticut, in 1973, by eccentric and artistic Italian-American hairdressers. She is the youngest of four sisters. (Lynsey Addario)" data-image-copyright="et-sidebyside-2280-dadpics_0003" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/et-sidebyside-2280-dadpics_0003-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/et-sidebyside-2280-dadpics_0003-760x504.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.74473684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/WP-2003-APRIL-11-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT009A.jpg" data-image-caption="April 11, 2003, Kirkuk, Iraq: Lynsey Addario photographing an Iraqi man as he is denied entry to an American-run hospital after the boy he is holding sustained a bullet injury and the Iraqi Kurdish police and American soldiers denied help. On Addario’s first trip to Iraq in 2003, she decided to go north to Kurdistan "to work around the edges” because she suspected she lacked the physical stamina to embed with the military invading Baghdad. (Photo: Chang W. Lee)" data-image-copyright="WP-2003 APRIL 11 - ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT009A" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/WP-2003-APRIL-11-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT009A-380x283.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/WP-2003-APRIL-11-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT009A-760x566.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-DARFUR-SUDAN-mesla.jpg" data-image-caption="August 19, 2004: Lynsey Addario photographs Sudan Liberation Movement (SLA) rebels in Darfur, Sudan. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)" data-image-copyright="FO/SLA" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-DARFUR-SUDAN-mesla-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-DARFUR-SUDAN-mesla-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67236842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2000-mar-4-GettyImages-649158384.jpg" data-image-caption="March 4, 2000: A widow stands and sings during her afternoon chanting session at an ashram in Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, India. Lynsey Addario began photographing professionally for the <i>Buenos Aires Herald</i> in 1996. She then freelanced for the Associated Press in New York for several years before moving to New Delhi to cover South Asia. In 2000, she traveled to Afghanistan to document life and oppression under the Taliban. (Photo: Lynsey Addario)" data-image-copyright="India Daily Life" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2000-mar-4-GettyImages-649158384-380x256.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2000-mar-4-GettyImages-649158384-760x511.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2280-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT006A-2011-taken-prisoner-with-nytimes-colleagues-1.jpg" data-image-caption="March 11, 2011: (Left to right) Yuri Kozyrev of <i>TIME</i> magazine, Lynsey Addario and Tyler Hicks of <i>The New York Times</i>, and freelancer Nicki Sobecki stand during a pause in the fighting in Ras Lanuf, Libya. In March 2011, Addario was in Libya covering the civil war when she, along with a local driver and three other journalists on assignment with <i>The New York Times</i>, ventured into the exposed frontline town of Ajdabiya. Captured by Gaddafi’s soldiers, the four journalists were bound, blindfolded, and taken away; their driver died. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Opposition Rebels Battle Gaddafi Forces In Eastern Libya" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2280-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT006A-2011-taken-prisoner-with-nytimes-colleagues-1-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2280-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT006A-2011-taken-prisoner-with-nytimes-colleagues-1-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2013-jan-17-GettyImages-649329618.jpg" data-image-caption="January 17, 2013: Syrian women prepare a meal for the funeral of a Free Syrian Army fighter who had been killed across the border in Aleppo while his family members sought refuge in the Lebanese village of Saadnayel, in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. The United Nations estimates that the number of Syrian refugees currently in countries bordering Syria has risen to 600,000, with around 200,000 already registered in Lebanon. (Lynsey Addario/Getty)" data-image-copyright="Syrian Refugees in Lebanon" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2013-jan-17-GettyImages-649329618-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2013-jan-17-GettyImages-649329618-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2010-may-for-bio-GettyImages-672379496.jpg" data-image-caption="May 20, 2010: Blood continues to leak from Mamma Sessay, 18, shortly after she delivered the second of twins, as her sister, Amenata, helps clean her body at the Magburaka Government Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone. Sessay said repeatedly, "I am going to die," as she lay on the delivery table. Sessay was forced to marry at 14 years old, to a man who was about 50, and had her first child at 15. Sessay delivered the first of the twins the day before at the Moyorgboh Maternal Child Health post near her village, but her contractions ceased for the second child. Sessay then traveled by canoe and ambulance from her village to the Magburaka Government Hospital, where she delivered the second baby with the aid of midwives and hospital nurses. Mamma Sessay had postpartum hemorrhaging and died as she was brought to the one doctor in the hospital. Sierra Leone has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, with roughly 900 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births; an average of five women die per day in childbirth, and one in eight women in Sierra Leone will face a lifetime risk of death during childbirth. The high rate is due to several causes: an extremely high rate of teenage pregnancy, which leads to complications during delivery; little access to hospitals or medical doctors, coupled with ill-equipped clinics and hospitals; and a cultural preference for traditional birthing attendants over modern hospitals. (Lynsey Addario)" data-image-copyright="Maternal Mortality: The Death of Mamma Sessay" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2010-may-for-bio-GettyImages-672379496-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2010-may-for-bio-GettyImages-672379496-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-april-GettyImages-691931054.jpg" data-image-caption="April 12, 2008: Kahindo, 20, sits in her home with her two children born out of rape in North Kivu, in eastern Congo. Kahindo was kidnapped and then held for almost three years in the bush by six Interahamwe, who she claims were Rwandan soldiers. They each raped her repeatedly, and she had one child in the forest, and was pregnant with the second by the time she escaped. An average of 400 women per month were estimated to be sexually assaulted in the autumn of 2007 in eastern Congo. That said, many women never make it to treatment centers and are not accounted for in these statistics. (Photo: Lynsey Addario/Getty Images Reportage)" data-image-copyright="Rape Victims in the Democratic Republic of Congo" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-april-GettyImages-691931054-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2008-april-GettyImages-691931054-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-FALLUJAH-WEEK-AFTER-KIDNAPPING-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT017.jpg" data-image-caption="April 2004: Lynsey Addario on assignment in Fallujah, Iraq, the week after she was kidnapped outside of Fallujah. “We rounded a corner, and out my window, a man with a Kalashnikov walked like a hunter along the street. My stomach sank, and I knew it was too late. I looked at Jeffrey and pictured an American flag. I took off my <i>abaya</i> and threw it over his head, unsuccessfully trying to disguise him as a woman. By this time, our car had been cut off by a blue minivan, and dozens of armed men swirled around our vehicle, their faces wrapped in patterned red and white <i>keffiyehs</i>, their black eyes darting back and forth like the men who had robbed me only months earlier — twice — near these roads. Were they the same men? I turned to Jeffrey: 'We are going to die now.' It was my only thought.”" data-image-copyright="2004 - FALLUJAH - WEEK AFTER KIDNAPPING --- ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT017" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-FALLUJAH-WEEK-AFTER-KIDNAPPING-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT017-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-FALLUJAH-WEEK-AFTER-KIDNAPPING-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT017-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65131578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-august-GettyImages-691902902.jpg" data-image-caption="August 18, 2004: Young Sudanese refugees at Oure Cassoni camp in Bahai, Chad. In March 2003, after decades of tension, fighting erupted in Sudan’s western Darfur region between Sudanese government forces and rebel groups such as the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. Over the next few months, tens of thousands of Darfuris fled. Government troops and allied militia forces, called the Janjaweed, attacked villages and internally-displaced-persons camps, systematically raping the women and murdering whole communities. To ensure mass destruction, forces burned homes and poisoned water wells. (Photo: Lynsey Addario/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Darfur's Refugees" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-august-GettyImages-691902902-380x248.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2004-august-GettyImages-691902902-760x495.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-GettyImages-671215452.jpg" data-image-caption="October 2007: Afghan elders from a "hostile" village in the Korengal Valley listen to American commanders explain why they had to attack their village with heavy air power, the night before, while on a week-long mission to look for caves, weapons caches, and known anti-coalition members in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan. (Lynsey Addario)" data-image-copyright="U.S. Troops Fight Taliban in Korengal Valley" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-GettyImages-671215452-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2007-october-GettyImages-671215452-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.33684210526316" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/3-panel-PERSONAL007.png" data-image-caption="Lynsey Addario married Paul de Bendern, a journalist with Reuters, in 2009; Addario, 27 weeks pregnant, photographing children near the Israeli border in the Gaza Strip in October 2011; Addario with her son, Lukas, born in 2011." data-image-copyright="3-panel-PERSONAL007" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/3-panel-PERSONAL007-380x128.png [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/3-panel-PERSONAL007-760x256.png"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4366729678639" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT001-afghanistan-2000-confirm.jpg" data-image-caption="October 2001, Islamabad, Pakistan: A demonstration of about a thousand people against the United States attack on Afghanistan rallied in the capital city of Pakistan. A strong contingent of riot police was present, and the demonstration broke up after an hour, without incident. (Robert Harbison/The Christian Science Monitor)" data-image-copyright="wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT001 -- afghanistan 2000 -confirm" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT001-afghanistan-2000-confirm-264x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-ADDARIOONASSIGNMENT001-afghanistan-2000-confirm-529x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.35131578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2016-2280-chuol-and-mary.jpg" data-image-caption="(Left) Lynsey Addario with Chuol’s mother and great-grandmother. “Inside, Mary’s grandmother, Chuol’s great-grandmother, sat fanning the flies away. I introduced myself through our translator and immediately presented them with a tattered copy of <i>The Times Magazine</i>, with Chuol on the cover, that I had brought with me from London; it was an image of him fishing in the swamps near Nyal. The grandmother began to rock back and forth, reaching for the magazine, crying, “My son, my son.” (Right) October 2016: Chuol watching his mother, Mary’s, video message on Lynsey Addario’s laptop in Kakuma Refugee Camp. Seven-year-old Chuol was living with his parents, grandparents, and other relatives in a village near the city of Leer in South Sudan when a power struggle between President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar triggered a civil war in 2013. When the fighting came to Chuol’s village, women were raped and men murdered. His father and grandfather were burned alive. Chuol fled into the swamp with his mother and grandmother. In the chaos, his mother ran in another direction, and she was lost. For months they did not know if she was dead or alive. Chuol and his grandmother were able to get to a camp in Juba, South Sudan’s capital, before traveling to another camp in Kenya to join other relatives. Addario met Chuol in September 2015 when she accompanied a team of journalists to document his story for <i>The New York Times Magazine</i>’s virtual reality film <i>The Displaced</i>. (Credit: Lynsey Addario for <i>The New York Times</i>)" data-image-copyright="wp-2016-2280--chuol-and-mary" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2016-2280-chuol-and-mary-380x134.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/08/wp-2016-2280-chuol-and-mary-760x267.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-LondonSummit_1404.png" data-image-caption="Bestselling author, award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Sebastian Junger with Lynsey Addario in The Great Hall of Cliveden House during American Academy of Achievement's 2017 International Achievement Summit." data-image-copyright="wp-LondonSummit_1404" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-LondonSummit_1404-380x253.png [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-LondonSummit_1404-760x507.png"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0697.jpg" data-image-caption="September 2019: Lynsey Addario presents the Golden Plate Award to photojournalist and war photographer James Nachtwey at the Banquet of the Golden Plate gala ceremonies during the 53rd International Achievement Summit in New York City." data-image-copyright="wp-2019Summit_0697" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0697-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2019Summit_0697-760x608.jpg"></div> 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<time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on November 5, 2019</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever the-arts public-service ambitious curious resourceful write teach-others " data-year-inducted="1996" data-achiever-name="Goodwin"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/goodwin_760_ac-190x190.jpg 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<div class="isotope-achiever public-service small-town-rural-upbringing curious explore-the-world write help-mankind " data-year-inducted="2008" data-achiever-name="Kristof"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/kristof-Achiever-Profile-Square-760-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/kristof-Achiever-Profile-Square-760-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Nicholas D. Kristof</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Journalist, Author and Columnist</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2008</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever public-service public-service ambitious athletic extroverted join-the-military write " data-year-inducted="2014" data-achiever-name="McRaven"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/mcraven_760_ac-1-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/mcraven_760_ac-1-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Global War on Terrorism</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2014</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever public-service experienced-war-firsthand small-town-rural-upbringing ambitious athletic join-the-military " data-year-inducted="2012" data-achiever-name="Petraeus"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/petraeus-new-profile-square-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/petraeus-new-profile-square-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">General David H. Petraeus, USA</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Military Strategist</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2012</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever public-service illness-or-disability experienced-war-firsthand small-town-rural-upbringing ambitious curious write explore-the-world " data-year-inducted="1990" data-achiever-name="Sheehan"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/sheehan4-008a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/06/sheehan4-008a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Neil Sheehan</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">1990</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> </footer> </div> </div> </article> <div class="modal image-modal" id="imageModal" tabindex="-1" role="dialog" aria-labelledby="imageModal" aria-hidden="true"> <div class="close-container"> <div class="close icon-icon_x" data-dismiss="modal" aria-label="Close"></div> </div> <div class="modal-dialog" role="document"> <div class="modal-content"> <div class="modal-body"> <figure class="image-modal__container"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <img class="image-modal__image" src="/web/20200917235241im_/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/" alt=""/>  <figcaption class="p-t-2 container"> <div class="image-modal__caption sans-2 text-white"></div>  </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </div> </div> </div> </div> </main> </div> </div> <footer class="content-info main-footer bg-black"> <div class="container"> <div class="find-achiever" id="find-achiever-list"> <div class="form-group"> <input id="find-achiever-input" class="search js-focus" placeholder="Search for an achiever"/> <i class="icon-icon_chevron-down"></i> </div> <ul class="find-achiever-list list m-b-0 list-unstyled"> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/hank-aaron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hank Aaron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/kareem-abdul-jabbar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lynsey Addario</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/edward-albee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Albee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/tenley-albright-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tenley Albright, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Svetlana Alexievich</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/julie-andrews/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Julie Andrews</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-angelou/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Angelou</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frances H. 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Bush</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/susan-butcher/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Susan Butcher</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-michael-caine/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Michael Caine</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-cameron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Cameron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-s-carson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin S. Carson, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-carter/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Carter</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-cash/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Cash</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-j-clinton/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William J. Clinton</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/francis-s-collins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/denton-a-cooley/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Denton A. Cooley, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/francis-ford-coppola/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis Ford Coppola</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-dalio/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Dalio</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/olivia-de-havilland/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Olivia de Havilland</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/michael-e-debakey-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/michael-dell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael S. Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Dennis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-herbert-donald-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Herbert Donald, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-doubilet/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Doubilet</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Michael E. Thornton, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/clyde-tombaugh/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Clyde Tombaugh</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Charles H. Townes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-trimble/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord David Trimble</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/ted-turner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert Edward (Ted) Turner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/desmond-tutu/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Archbishop Desmond Tutu</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-updike/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Updike</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/gore-vidal/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gore Vidal</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/antonio-villaraigosa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Antonio Villaraigosa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/lech-walesa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lech Walesa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/herschel-walker/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Herschel Walker</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/alice-waters/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Alice Waters</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235241/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-d-watson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James D. 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