Author, journalist, and photographer Hadani Ditmars has reported from Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and Iraq, often examining the human costs of sectarian strife as well as cultural resistance to war, occupation and embargo. A board member of Reporters Without Borders, she champions freedom of expression and her work gives voice to the voiceless.
Hadani is a former editor at New Internationalist magazine and last travelled to Baghdad in 2010 to write and photograph the May 2010 issue Iraq, 7 years later, the legacy of invasion. She was in Mosul and Erbil in December of 2019 documenting the restoration of UNESCO World Heritage Sites for a June 2020 feature in Geographical Magazine.
Her best selling book Dancing in the No Fly Zone (chosen by the Globe and Mail as one of 100 best and most influential books of 2005) recounts her time in Iraq from 1997 until the fall of 2003 and is one of the few books on the troubled nation that covers pre and post invasion reality. As Iraq continues to weather violent occupation, theocratic thuggism and civil strife, Dancing in the No-Fly Zone serves as an eerily prescient tribute to a culture and a people at the breaking point. Hadani's next book Ancient Heart, is a political travelogue through seven historical sites. Employing architecture as metaphor in the cradle of civilization, the book examines 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 in 1992
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 in 1994 era Jerusalem, and continues to report from the occupied territories on cultural and political issues. She traveled to Iran for Sight and Sound and Vogue magazine in 1997 (when Rafsanjani was in power), reporting on gender issues, politics and cinema.
Hadani's work, which has also taken her to Zanzibar, Guatemala, Colombia, Egypt, Ireland, Indonesia, Italy, India, Jordan, Tunisia and Uzbekistan, has been published in the New York Times, the London Independent, The Globe and Mail, Newsweek, Time, Maclean's and Ms. Magazine and broadcast on CBC and BBC radio and television.
Her work has been published in the Middle East Institute, Maclean's, Canadian Art, Vogue, Wallpaper, Wasafiri magazine, Dwell, Middle East Eye, Architectural Review, Azure, Canadian Architect, Metropolis, the Art Newspaper, the Guardian the Independent, the NY Post, the New Arab, Al-Jazeera, Sight and Sound, the Walrus, Haaretz, Ms Magazine, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Time, Newsweek, the Globe and Mail and the National Post and broadcast on CBC, BBC, RTE and NPR.
Hadani was a regular contributor to CBC Radio's Dispatches for a decade and continues to write online opinion pieces and broadcast on programmes like the Sunday Edition. She was also a regular current affairs commentator on Rogers OMNI television program The Standard and a commentator for CBC Newsworld from Iraq.
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.
an interactive theatre/video project that brought together displaced Muslim and Christian children, wrote for the first joint Israeli-Palestinian magazine post Oslo accord in 1994 era Jerusalem, and continues to report from the occupied territories on cultural and political issues. She traveled to Iran for Sight and Sound and Vogue magazine in 1997 (when Rafsanjani was in power), reporting on gender issues, politics and cinema.
