Howard W. French facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Howard French
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| Born |
Howard Waring French
October 14, 1957 Washington, D.C., U.S.
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| Occupation | Journalist, author, photographer, Columbia University professor |
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Notable credit(s)
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The New York Times Born in Blackness (book) |
| Spouse(s) | Agnès French |
Howard Waring French (born October 14, 1957) is an American journalist, author, and photographer. Since 2008, he has been a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Before becoming a professor, Mr. French worked for a long time as a foreign correspondent and writer for The New York Times.
Contents
Howard French's Journey
Starting as a Journalist
Howard French taught at a university in the Ivory Coast during the 1980s. After that, he became a journalist. He reported a lot on the political events in Western and Central Africa. These reports helped him write his 2004 book, A Continent for the Taking.
Reporting for The New York Times
Mr. French joined The New York Times in 1986. From 1990 to 1994, he was the head of their office for the Caribbean and Central America. He covered many countries, including Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. He was one of the first Black correspondents for the newspaper.
From 1994 to 1998, Howard French reported from West and Central Africa for the Times. He covered wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Central Africa. He paid special attention to the fall of Zaire's longtime leader, Mobutu Sese Seko.
Reporting in Asia
From 1998 to 2003, Mr. French was the Tokyo office chief for the Times. He covered news from Japan and the Koreas. To get ready for this job, he spent a year studying Japanese at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
From 2003 to 2008, he was the Shanghai office chief in China. He reported on political and social events in China. This included how people started to form groups to help each other. He also covered the government's actions against protests, like the Dongzhou protests of 2005. He also reported on the big Sichuan earthquake in 2008.
Howard French is very good with languages. Besides English, he speaks Mandarin, French, Spanish, and Japanese.
Writing and Books
Mr. French has written often for The New York Review of Books. He has also written for The Atlantic and other publications. He wrote long articles for The Guardian. Besides his work for The New York Times, he wrote a weekly column about regional news for the International Herald Tribune. He also wrote a weekly column about international news for Foreign Policy.
Among his five books, Howard French is best known for Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War. This book won awards in 2021. It suggests that Africans played a very important role in shaping the history of the Western World since the 1400s. His book before that was Everything Under the Heavens: How China's Past Helps Shape its Push for Global Power (2017).
Photography Work
Howard French is also a documentary photographer. His photos have been shown in art exhibits around the world. His project, "Disappearing Shanghai," showed the old quarters of Shanghai that were quickly changing. This photo exhibit was shown in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. A book with these photos, Disappearing Shanghai: Photographs and Poems of an Intimate Way of Life, was published in 2012. He worked with the writer and poet Qiu Xiaolong on this book.
Awards and Recognition
Howard French has received many honors for his work.
- In 2025, he was chosen as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- In 2022, he won the Massachusetts African American History Museum Stone Book Award for Born in Blackness.
- Also in 2022, he won the Hurston/Wright Award for Non-Fiction for Born in Blackness.
- In 2016, he was named Professor of the Year at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
- In 2004, he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Maryland for his writings on East Asia.
Howard French's Books
- A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa, Knopf, 2004. ISBN: 978-0375414619
- Disappearing Shanghai: Photographs and Poems of an Intimate Way of Life with Qiu Xiaolong, Homa & Sekey 2012. ISBN: 978-1931907811
- China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa, Knopf 2014. ISBN: 978-0307946652
- Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China's Push for Global Power, Alfred A. Knopf, 2017. ISBN: 978-0385353328
- Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War, Liveright, 2021. ISBN: 978-1631495830
