© Brian Wharton
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Joanna Pitman was born in 1963 and educated in London and at Cambridge University where she studied Japanese. She spent a year working for a medical aid charity, SAIDIA, in the semi-desert of northern Kenya, making mud bricks to build a health clinic; and at the end of the year completed a 280km adventure-filled walk accompanied by two Samburu warriors from the clinic at Ngilai to Nairobi to raise funds for the charity. She became a writer for a financial magazine in London before being appointed Bureau Chief for The Times in Tokyo where she worked for five years covering all news out of Japan and major stories in the region. She interviewed all sorts, including gangsters, sumo wrestlers and even a cannibal.
Back in London, she became a feature writer for The Times and did a series of major celebrity and political interviews for The Times Magazine, including Aung San Suu Kyi, Benazir Bhutto, President Fujimori of Peru, as well as many well-known film, theatre and music personalities.
Since 2000, she has been the photography critic for The Times. She lives in London with her family. On Blondes is her first book. |