Tim and Ben Judah

Tim Judah
(source: Matthisvalerie in WikiMedia)
no copyright infringement intended

Ben Judah
(source: European Council on Foreign Relations)
no copyright infringement intended

Both are British journalists and authors. Tim is Ben's father. Born in 1962, Tim Judah studied at London School of Economics and at Tufts, then began a career of correspondent in hot zones around the world, reporting from El Salvador, Iraq, Afghanistan, Uganda, North Korea. In 1989 he moved to Bucharest, to work there for The Times and The Economist. In 1991 he moved to Belgrade covering the Balkan wars for the British media and authoring several books focused on the Yugoslav drama (the first of them being The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, published in 1997 - criticized by Charles Simic for ethnic bias - truth is that is hard not to be biased in such a complex matter). Once the Euromaidan started, Tim began reporting from Kiev. His most recent book (In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine, 2015) covers the Ukrainian situation. As for the son, Ben, he was born in 1988 and spent his childhood in Bucharest and Belgrade, following his father, and attending French schools in both places. Back in England he continued his French education at the London Lycée Charles de Gaulle (aside English and French he is fluent in Russian), and then studied Modern History and Politics at Oxford. As a journalist he spent several years in Russia, traveling all over the place throughout the former Soviet Union, reporting from Caucasus, Siberia, and Central Asia, covering the war in Georgia and the revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and writing a book (Fragile Empire, 2013) that analyzes the evolution of Putin's Russia. Ben also traveled to Tunisia (during the 2011 Revolution) and Xinjiang (the Wild West of China, as he named it in Standpoint - actually a region with a very distinct national identity, threatened by the centralizing policies of the Beijing regime). He worked with the European Council on Foreign Relations, continuing there his research on Russian politics, and with the European Stability Initiative, focusing on the Russo-Turkish relations. His second book (This is London) was published this year and is an epic account of contemporary London ... motivated by a desire to show our capital in its true (new) colours: as a megacity of global migrants, some of them rich, most of them poor, few of them happy with their lot (The Guardian).

• Ben Judah, England’s Last Gasp of Empire

(A Life in Books)

(Zoon Politikon)