Author, journalist, and photographer Hadani Ditmars has reported from around the globe for 20 years, examining the human costs of sectarian strife as well as cultural resistance to war, occupation and embargo.

Her best selling book Dancing in the No Fly Zone recounts her time in Iraq from 1997 until 2003 and is one of the few books that covers pre and post invasion reality. As Iraq continues to weather the violent fallout of a disastrous decade, it serves as an eerily prescient tribute to a culture and a people at the breaking point.

Hadani returned to Baghdad in 2010 when she was an editor at New Internationalist, to write and photograph a 23 page magazine on the legacy of invasion. Her next book Ancient Heart is a political travelogue through seven historical sites. Employing architecture as metaphor in the cradle of civilization, the book will examine the ravages of decades of war and oppression on the Iraqi soul, and what it means for our world heritage.

Hadani was stationed in Beirut for nine months working on an interactive theatre/video project that brought together displaced Muslim and Christian children, wrote for the first joint Israeli-Palestinian magazine post Oslo accord, and continues to report from the occupied territories on cultural and political issues. She traveled to Iran for Sight and Sound and Vogue magazine, reporting on gender issues, politics and cinema.

Her work, has been published in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Independent, The Globe and Mail, Newsweek, Time, Maclean's and Ms. Magazine and broadcast on CBC and BBC radio and television. She has been a regular CBC Radio Dispatches contributor since the show's debut in 2001 and was a current affairs commentator on Rogers OMNI television program The Standard and a columnist for the Province.

Hadani’s work combines the cultural and the political and offers a deep reading of global events in a nuanced and intriguing style. In addition to political reporting, she is a columnist for the Huffington Post, a contributor to Canadian Art magazine, and writes for Metropolis and Wallpaper. Her updated, 2012 Vancouver Wallpaper City Guide is published by Phaidon and she lectures and writes on architecture and urbanism internationally. In March 2012, Hadani will speak at a seminar on culture and architecture in Baghdad at New York’s Center for Architecture.

Hadani has been invited to speak at the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Frontline Club in London, City Lights Books and the World Affairs Council in San Francisco, and Trinity College in Dublin. She gave a talk at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in July 2007 on the connections between sectarian strife in Ireland and the Middle East and has lectured to the Iraq Studies Group at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. She’s been a guest and featured writer at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto and the Galway Arts Festival in Ireland, where she was introduced by Michael D. Higgins.

Her presentations combine humour and pathos, storytelling and reportage, as well as audio-visual elements that enliven and enlighten. She is available for corporate, academic and cultural events.



Hadani Ditmars publications: