Christina Lamb


Christina Lamb OBE is a British journalist and author. She is the chief foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times.
Lamb has won fifteen major awards including four British Press Awards and the European Prix Bayeux-Calvados for war correspondents. She is an Honorary Fellow of University College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Global Fellow for the Wilson Centre for International Affairs in Washington D.C. In 2013 she was awarded an OBE by the Queen for services to journalism. In November 2018 Lamb received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Dundee.
She has written nine books including the bestselling The Africa House and I Am Malala, co-written with Malala Yousafzai, which was named Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards 2013.

Education

Lamb was educated at Nonsuch High School for Girls, Cheam and graduated with a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from University of Oxford.

Career

In 1988, Lamb was awarded Young Journalist of the Year for her coverage of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
As a journalist, Lamb travelled with the Mujahidin fighting the Soviet occupation, spending the next two years living in Peshawar. She has reported on Pakistan and Afghanistan for more than three decades.
Lamb has been based in Islamabad and Rio de Janeiro for the Financial Times and Johannesburg and Washington D.C. for The Sunday Times. She has covered wars from Iraq to Libya, Angola to Syria; repression from Eritrea to Zimbabwe; and journeyed to the far reaches of the Amazon to visit remote tribes. She pays particular attention to issues such as the girls abducted by Boko Haram in Nigeria, Yazidi sex slaves in Iraq, and the plight of Afghan women.
In November 2001, Lamb was deported from Pakistan after uncovering evidence of a covert operation by rogue elements in the ISI, Pakistan's military intelligence service, to smuggle arms to the Taliban. In 2006, she narrowly escaped with her life when caught in a Taliban ambush of British troops in Helmand. She was on Benazir Bhutto's bus when it was blown up in October 2007.
I Am Malala, an account of the life of main author Malala Yousafzai, has been translated into 40 languages, and has sold close to two million copies worldwide.
Her book Nujeen: One Girl's Incredible Journey from War-torn Syria in a Wheelchair co-written with Nujeen Mustafa, was published by William Collins in September 2016 and was translated in nine languages. The book Nujeen inspired a five-movement cantata Everyday Wonders: The Girl from Aleppo written by Kevin Crossley-Holland and Cecilia McDowall first performed by The National Children's Choir of Great Britain in Birmingham Town Hall on 10 August, 2018.
Lamb's latest book Our Bodies, Their Battlefield was published by William Collins in March 2020 and was translated in nine languages.
Her first play Drones, Baby, Drones with Ron Hutchison was performed at London's Arcola Theatre in 2016.
Lamb is a member of the international board of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting and is a Patron of the UK-registered charity Afghan Connection.
In 2009, Lamb's portrait was on display in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. A photograph of her by Francesco Guidicini is in the Photographs Collection of the National Portrait Gallery. She inspired the character Esther in the novel The Zahir written by Paulo Coelho.
In 2017, she was the first female former undergraduate of University College, Oxford to be elected an Honorary Fellow. The Fellowship was awarded in recognition of "her courageous, vivid and critically important journalism, as well as for her support of the College".

Books

Journalism awards