Author
GALLERIES
AN AUTHOR'S LIFE
A quirky portrait of the author's formative years, including author in nappies, author in a skirt, author on a moped carrying an urgent lettuce delivery and various other . . . revealing pictures. Not to be reproduced without the authors' permission, of course. More...
AUTHOR AT WORK
Damien Lewis has reported from war zones, jungles, disasters, mountains and famines in the Sudan, Eirtrea, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Syria, Iraq, Burma, Papua New Guinea, Brazil, Venezuela . . . and more. More...
Damien Lewis became an author largely by ‘accident’, when a British publisher asked him if he’d be willing to turn a TV report he was working on into a book. The TV report was filmed in the Sudan war zone, and told the story of how Arab tribes seized black African slaves in horrific slave raids. Lewis had been to the Sudan war dozens of times over the past decade, reporting on the horrors of that conflict for the BBC, Channel 4 and US and European broadcasters (including ABC, CNN, ZDF and ARD - see Film Work page of this website).
His slavery TV report told the story of a young girl from the Nuba tribe, seized in a raid and sold into slavery in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital city, and of her epic escape. The publisher asked Lewis if the Nuba girl would be willing to write her life story as a book, with his help as the co-author. The book that they together wrote was called ‘Slave’. It became an instant and acclaimed bestseller, being translated into 20 different languages. It won several awards and is being made into a feature film.
Over the preceding fifteen years Damien Lewis had reported from many of the World’s war, conflict and disaster zones – including Sudan, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, Burma and the Balkans (see Author's Gallery). He (and his film crew) travelled into such areas with aid workers, the British or allied military, UN forces or local military groups. He reported on the horror and human impact of war, as well as the drama of conflict. Often, he worked alone. Often, he filmed his own material. In the early 90s Lewis spent eight months in Burma, living in that war zone and filming with the soldiers there. He also trained with the then Chemical & Biological Weapons Establishment (now DERA), at Porton Down, learning how to investigate alleged chemical and biological weapons use. He carried out two such investigations deep in the war zones in Burma, and a further investigation in the Sudan war zone – each time penetrating into areas recently subjected to alleged chemical or biological weapons attacks. The investigations and TV reports into the use of such weapons of mass destruction won him acclaim at the Rory Peck Awards in 2000 (link), the World’s foremost awards for war journalists.
In addition to his war reporting, Lewis also reported on the heroin trade in Burma-India, child trafficking in Bangladesh, tiger poaching in Thailand and famine across the Horn of Africa. He made films about lost tribes in the Amazon, the drug Qat in the Yemen, an epic pilgrimage across the war zone in Sri Lanka and timber smuggling in Cameroon and the Congo. This last reporting won him a Project Censored Award, more commonly known as ‘the Alternative Pulitzers’. He also posed as a Muslim extremist and penetrated some of the UK’s most dangerous Islamist groups.
During
a decade spent reporting from around the world Lewis lived for months on
end in deserts, rainforests, jungles and chaotic third world cities. In
his work and travels he met and interviewed people smugglers, diamond miners,
Catholic priests ‘gone native’, desert nomads, uncontacted tribes,
aid workers, bush pilots, arms dealers, genocidal leaders, peacekeepers,
game wardens, slum kids, world presidents, heroin addicts, rebel war lords,
child prostitutes, Islamist terrorists, Hindu holy men, mercenaries, bush
doctors, soldiers and spies. He was injured, and was hospitalised with bizarre
tropical diseases – including repeated bouts of malaria, flesh-eating
bacteria and septicaemia – but survived and continued to work. And
oddly enough, it was in his home town, London, that Lewis was finally forced
to a halt, by an extremely rare and life-threatening neurological condition.
In March 2000, two days before his 34th birthday, Lewis was rushed into the Royal London Hospital for emergency surgery. He was warned by his neurosurgeon that he faced severe risk of quadriplegia, paraplegia or death as a result of the operation. Miraculously, he emerged five days later walking and more-or-less unscathed. But it was during the months spent recuperating from that operation that he was approached by the British publisher to write the book, ‘Slave’. This was pure serendipity, and Lewis knew it. His operation and all but miraculous recovery had sent him a clear message – it was time to stop taking so many risks and refocus a little. He knew that by being an author he could do so. He had always wanted to write. It was only natural that having seen so much of war that he would be drawn to stories of war, terrorism, espionage and the often dark and sinister causes behind such conflicts.
Damien Lewis has not stopped going to and reporting from war zones – he has just cut back on such work. In 2003 he spent three months in the Sudan was zone, shooting and directing a feature documentary on the World’s largest field hospital. The 90-minute film, War Hospital, won the Discovery-NHK BAANF Award and the 2005 Best of Festival Award at the Columbus International Film and Video Festival. Twice during 2004 he returned to the Sudan conflict zone, once to research a new book that he’s working on and once to be filmed as part of an ARD/Arte documentary about slavery in Sudan. He also travelled to Sierra Leone repeatedly during that period, to research his book Operation Certain Death, and there was a short trip to Syria somewhere in between!
Damien Lewis’s first book, Slave, won the prestigious Index on Censorship Book Award, in 2004, and the CECRA Award in 2002. It was a finalist in the Crime Writers Golden Dagger Awards for 2004. Since Slave, Damien Lewis has written two further non-fiction books - Operation Certain Death (2004) and Bloody Heroes (2006) - both about British Special Forces missions. In 2006 he was chosen as one of the ‘nation’s 20 favourite authors’ and wrote his first fiction, Desert Claw, for the Government’s Quick Read initiative. Desert Claw tells of a group of ex-Special Forces soldiers sent into Iraq to retrieve a looted Van Gogh painting, with a savage twist to the end of the tale. Damien Lewis is presently working on further fiction and non-fiction books.
Damien Lewis’s work, books and films have won the Index on Censorship (UK), CECRA (Spain), Project Censored (US), Commonwealth Relations (UK), Discovery-NHK BANFF (Canada), Rory Peck (UK), BBC One World (UK) and BBC-WWF Wildscreen (UK) Awards. He is a Fellow of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.
Damien Lewis’s books in the media:
'Reveals a true story of British courage and daring.' The Sunday Times
'Riveting.' Richard & Judy Show
'Grotesque, glorious and utterly gripping.' Bolton Evening News
'A rollercoaster journey into the very heart of darkness.' The Gerry Ryan Show
'The most dramatic story of a secret wartime mission ever.' News of the World
"A gripping thriller," the Mail on Sunday
'Reveals the horror,' Sky News
'The exclusive, inside account.' Zoo Magazine
'Shines a light on bloody courage and a terrifying ordeal,' The Gerry Ryan Show
'Shocking,' Kirkus Reviews
'Wrenching', The Washington Post
'Harrowing', People Magazine
'A triumph,' The Economist
"Having experienced war, terror and espionage Damien Lewis is now writing about it, and his new book is a griping thriller." The Gerry Ryan Show
'Gripping,' Eye Spy Magazine
'As good as any thriller I have ever read'. Freddie Forsyth
'Exciting and revelatory.' Duncan Falconer
'A tremendous read.' Max Arthur