Laurence Deonna

Laurence Deonna (29 January 1937 – 2 August 2023) was a Swiss journalist, writer and photographer who in the late 1960s became a celebrated war reporter in the Middle-East. In 1987, on the basis of her articles, books and photographs promoting international understanding and improvements to the status of women, she was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education. Deonna published 12 widely translated books.

Biography Born on 29 January 1937 in Geneva, Laurence Deonna was the daughter of the economist and politician Raymond Deonna, who headed the board of the former Journal de Genève, and his wife Anne-Marie Vernet-Faesch. She left school before matriculating, attended art school in London and returned to Geneva to work in an art gallery. She was married for a short period between 1961 and 1963.

In 1967, invited to report on the Six-Day War, she embarked on a long career as a journalist in the Middle-East, where she took a special interest in the lives of Arab women. Realizing that books offered a more lasting way than newspapers of covering countries in depth, she went on to publish many lengthy accounts of her trips abroad over the next 40 years. They were frequently illustrated with her photographs.

Selected works Moyen-Orient – femmes du combat, de la terre et du sable, Labor et Fides, Geneva, 1970. Le Yémen que j’ai vu, 24 Heures, Lausanne, 1982. Yémen. Arthaud, Paris, 1983. La guerre à deux voix. Témoignages de "femmes ennemies", Le Centurion, Paris / Labor et Fides, Geneva 1986 Syriens, Syriennes (1992-1994), Zoé, Geneva, 1986. Persianeries - Reportages dans l’Iran des mollahs (1985-1998), Zoé, Genève, 1998. Kazakhstan – Bourlinguer en Asie centrale post-communiste, Zoé, Geneva 2001

In English On Persian Roads: Glimpses of Revolutionary Iran, 1985-1998, Pueblo, Colo, Passeggiata Press, 1999. Syrians : A Travelogue (1992-1994), Pueblo, Colo, Passeggiata Press, 1997. Yemen. Boulder, Colo, Three Continents Press, 1991. Travels through Kazakhstan : After the Fall of the Soviet Empire, London, Athena Press, 2010.