Bio of SAJA Speaker
Wednesday, May 28, 1997
JOHN F. BURNS Former New Delhi Correspondent, The New York Times
Islam correspondent based in London.
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JOHN F. BURNS
John Burns became
the chief of The New York Times bureau in New Delhi in 1994, covering all parts
of South Asia. He was previously based in Sarajevo and, before that, Belgrade.
He is the winner of two
Pulitzer Prizes in International Reporting. His April 1997 citation from the
Pulitzer Board reads, "...for his courageous and insightful coverage of the
harrowing regime imposed on Afghanistan by the Taliban." In April 1993, he
was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the strife and destruction
in Bosnia.
Burns was bureau chief
in Toronto from 1987 to 1991. From 1984 to 1987, he served as chief of the
Beijing bureau. In July 1986, he was incarcerated by the Chinese government
for six days on charges of espionage. After an investigation, all charges
were dropped, but he was expelled from the country.
From 1981 to 1984, he
was bureau chief in Moscow. Between 1976 and 1981, he was assigned to the
Johannesburg bureau.
Burns joined the NYT
in 1975 after covering the life and politics of mainland China from his base
in Beijing from 1971 to 1975 for the Toronto Globe and Mail. Before that,
he was a local and parliamentary reporter for The Globe and Mail.
Burns was born on Oct.
4, 1944, in Nottingham, England. His family moved to Canada when he was a
boy, and he was educated at McGill University in Montreal. In 1980 and 1981,
he studied Russian at Harvard, and in 1984, he studied Chinese at Cambridge
University. He also speaks French and German.
He is married to Jane
Scott-Long; they have two sons and a daughter.
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