Lynsey Addario, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist whose work regularly appears in The New York Times, National Geographic and Time magazine, has been named honoree for the Westport Library’s signature annual benefit BOOKED for the evening on Saturday, May 9, at 7:30 pm in the Library’s Great Hall.
Addario’s work has received widespread acclaim and enlightened the way global conflicts are perceived and understood. Raised in Westport (Staples High School Class of ‘91), she began her professional career with the Buenos Aires Herald in Argentina in 1996, eventually freelancing for the Associated Press in New York City, where she worked for several years before moving to New Delhi to cover South Asia. In 2000, she traveled to Afghanistan to document life and oppression under Taliban rule, and has since covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Darfur and Congo. She photographs features and breaking news focused on humanitarian and human rights issues across the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.
Her recent bodies of work include ongoing reporting on Syrian refugees, the ISIS push into Iraq, the civil war in South Sudan and African and Middle Eastern migrants arriving on Sicily’s shores. She was the official photographer for the Nobel Peace Center’s 10th Peace Prize exhibition, photographing 2014 winners Malala Yousefzai and Kailash Satyarthi for an exhibition at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway.
In 2015, American Photo Magazine named Addario one of the five most influential photographers of the past 25 years, saying she changed the way people see the world’s conflicts. She is the author of “It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War,” which has earned wide praise and has been optioned as a film by Warner Brothers, to be directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Academy Award Winning actress Jennifer Lawrence as Addario.
For further information, phone 203-291-4800, or check westportlibrary.org.