Minka Nijhuis

Minka Nijhuis is an award-winning journalist for the Dutch daily Trouw, Vrij Nederland and for several radio stations. She has reported on conflicts in Cambodia, Burma, Kosovo, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. She is the author of two books on Burma (A Tea House in the Jungle, 1995 and Smuggled Goods, 1998) and one about East Timor (The Legacy of Matebian, 2000) for which she was awarded the Prix des Ambassadeurs. Her book about a family in Baghdad, Khala’s House (2004), was nominated for the MJ Brusse Prize for non-fiction and this year Burma. Land of secrets won the Bob den Uyl Prize for the best Dutch-language travel book.

The Legacy of Matebian

Een jaar op Oost-Timor

(Contact, 2000, 224 pages)

East Timor is one of the world’s most notorious trouble spots and has so complex an historical, social and political past that only a few people can reach solid conclusions about it. One of these is the journalist Minka Nijhuis who spent nearly a year in East Timor after the fall of President Suharto in 1998. The Legacy of Matebian is an exciting and highly personal report of her stay in the capital Dili and in the hinterland of the former Portuguese colony.

Khala’s House

(Balans, 2004, 176 pages)

In-depth stories about life in Iraq are rare, since very few Western journalists dare to venture beyond the concrete walls of their heavily guarded hotels. Immediately after the fall of Saddam’s regime in 2003, Minka Nijhuis decided to experience daily life with an Iraqi family; this is her unique, personal story of ordinary people living through a war, written with remarkably few preconceptions.

Burma

Land van geheimen

(Balans, 2009, 224 pages)

Burma is the most photogenic dictatorship on earth: graceful figures wearing longyis, tropical flowers, pagodas like fancy meringues. Hidden from Western eyes are the prison camps, torture chambers and military offensives against minorities in border areas. An even better kept secret is the Burmese resistance. Students, workers and monks patiently weave their invisible threads straight through the junta’s web of secret agents and security forces. Journalist Minka Nijhuis spent seventeen years following key members and she tells their stories in evocative, insightful, often moving reportage.