NY Times hires Quartz Africa’s Dahir

The Times has long been committed to covering Africa with depth, creativity and enterprise. Now, at a moment when so many of our correspondents have moved on to new assignments, we are looking at this as an opportunity to bring new talent and fresh insight to our coverage.

We are excited to announce our first new correspondent: Abdi Latif Dahir is joining The Times in Nairobi from Quartz Africa, where he has served for three years as East Africa reporter.

Abdi has covered China’s deepening reach into Africa, the political transitions in Ethiopia and Sudan, and the intersection of technology and geopolitics (which of course is of particular interest to the journalistic ambitions of The Times right now). He has written about how companies and innovators are shaping industries, from agriculture to art. In between, he’s brought readers insightful stories about African culture, literature and food.

Besides his work in East Africa, Abdi has reported from Egypt and Nigeria, covered the United Nations General Assembly and written from Minnesota about the surge of the Somali political class there during the 2018 midterm elections in the United States.

Abdi was born in Nairobi and grew up partly in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. He has written about his love for Somalia and the pain of losing loved ones there in violent attacks by extremists. He began his career nearly a decade ago covering business and technology for the Daily Nation, in Kenya, and went on to write about the Horn of Africa region for various news outlets, including Africa Review, The East African, United Press International and Al Jazeera English.

Abdi, who speaks Somali, Arabic and Swahili, earned a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. In his spare time, he likes reading about African, Middle Eastern and Islamic history, as well as contemporary fiction and nonfiction.

Abdi takes up his new assignment in November. Please join us in welcoming him.