Ramita Navai

Ramita Navai
رامیتا نوایی
Navai at the University of Birmingham, 2012
Born	(1973-07-21) 21 July 1973 (age 51) Tehran, Iran
Citizenship	United Kingdom
Alma mater	City, University of London
Occupations	Journalist documentary producer author
Years active	2003–present
Notable work	City of Lies (2014)
Television	Unreported World

Ramita Navai (Persian: رامیتا نوایی; born 21 July 1973)^[1] is a British journalist, documentary producer, and author. A recipient of the Emmy Award^[2] and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award,^[3] she has reported from over 40 countries and has a reputation for gathering stories on underreported topics in dangerous environments.^[4]

Navai was born in Tehran, Iran, on 21 July 1973. Following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, she and her family immigrated to the United Kingdom, where they settled down in London.^[5] Navai attended Putney High School and later graduated with a postgraduate degree in journalism from City, University of London, where she was recognized as Young Journalist of the Year by the Broadcast Journalism Training Council.^[6] In 2023, she was voted Alumna of the Year of the Girls' Day School Trust for her work with "women’s and girls’ issues in some of the most war-torn and conflicted regions in the world" over the course of her career.^[7]

Navai worked as the Tehran correspondent for The Times from 2003 to 2006, where she covered events like the Bam earthquake^[8] and parliamentary and presidential elections.^[9][10][11] She has worked in more than 40 countries, including reporting for the United Nations in Iran,^[12] Pakistan,^[13] and Iraqi Kurdistan.^[14] She has made 20 documentaries for Channel 4's current affairs series Unreported World.^[15] For ITN / Channel 4 News, she has made various features, including investigating child trafficking in India^[16] and police gang-killings in Brazil.^[17] Her report Macedonia: Tracking Down the Refugee Kidnap Gangs^[18] won The Foreign Press Association London for News Story of the Year: TV award,^[19] the Royal Television Society for The Independent Award.^[20]

More recently she has reported on the activities of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (2017)^[21] and United Nations peacekeepers in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2018).^[22] She has written for many publications, including The Times,^[23][24] The Sunday Times,^[25] The Guardian,^[26][27] The Independent,^[28][29] the New Statesman,^[30][31] and The Irish Times.^[32]

In 2012, she won an Emmy Award^[33][34] for her undercover report from Syria for PBS Frontline.^[35] In September 2014, she appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.^[36]

In 2017, she reported and produced the Frontline PBS documentary Iraq Uncovered,^[37] which was also broadcast on Channel 4 with the title ISIS and the Battle for Iraq.^[38] Iraq Uncovered/ISIS and the Battle for Iraq won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award (International Television), the British Journalism Award for Foreign Affairs Journalism,^[39] and the Frontline Club award for Broadcast Journalism.^[40] It was also nominated for two Emmys (Outstanding Investigation and Outstanding Research).^[41]

In 2017 and 2018, she produced and reported the Frontline PBS, Channel 4, and ARTE documentary the UN Sex Abuse Scandal,^[42] which was broadcast in 2018.

City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran was published in the UK by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in May 2014 and in the US by PublicAffairs in September 2014. Based on extensive interviews and research City of Lies is an intimate portrait of modern Iran. It chronicles the lives of eight protagonists drawn from across the spectrum of Iranian society. It has been translated into five languages.^[43] City of Lies won Debut Political Book of the Year Award at the Political Book Awards^[44] as well as the Royal Society of Literature's Jerwood Award.^[45] It was a Book of the Year in both the Evening Standard (2014)^[46] and The Spectator.^[47]

Jon Stewart, The Daily Show:

The stories are beautiful, and they’re so well-detailed and nuanced.^[48]

Anthony Loyd:

One of the world’s most exciting cities, as revealed by one of journalism’s most exciting women. Navai slips effortlessly into the boots of earthy, urban writer to tour Tehran’s ripped backsides in this intimate, grand guignol debut. She transports us through the Iranian capital’s multiple personas with deft and knowing navigation: never short of love for even the lowliest of her fellow Tehranis. An intimate and devoted portrait, lifting a beautiful truth from a city masked in lies.^[49]

Eliza Griswold, The Sunday Telegraph:

A talented writer, she quickly sucks us in with her first character ... Navai has a reporter’s eye for the telling detail… this is a timely and beautifully written insight into the lives of Tehranis.^[50]

• City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014, ISBN 978-1-610-39519-9.
  • Vivre et mentir à Téhéran, Stock, 2015, ISBN 978-2-234-07808-6.
  • Stadt der Lügen. Liebe, Sex und Tod in Teheran, Kein & Aber Verlag, 2016, ISBN 978-3-0369-5750-0.
  • Orasul minciunilor, ISBN 9789734657698^[54]
  • Город лжи. Любовь. Секс. Смерть. Вся правда о Тегеране, 2018, ISBN 978-5-04-094684-6^[55]
  • Miasto kłamstw. Cała prawda o Teheranie, 2014, ISBN 9788379618842^[56]
• "Iran: Coming out from the Cold?" In Shifting Sands: The Unravelling of the Old Order in the Middle East, edited by Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson, 113–127. London: Profile Books.

• Unreported World, a Channel 4 documentary series

• Channel 4 - Unreported World Profile
• Ramita Navai Facebook page
• Ramita Navai Twitter page