Monica Mark is the Monitor’s Africa Editor, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. A British-Nigerian, she has reported from more than 20 countries in Africa, with a particular interest in offbeat longform stories. She was previously Johannesburg bureau chief for The New York Times, and before that spent a decade covering West Africa, first from Lagos, Nigeria for The Guardian, then in Dakar, Senegal for BuzzFeed News.
She has written on some of the biggest stories on the continent, often from remote outposts, where she has sought to elevate the unsung heroes in crises such as the Ebola epidemic, and in the jihadist conflicts waged by Boko Haram and Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. Deeply reported longform narratives, a particular interest, have ranged from modern-day slavery in Libya to queer culture in Nigeria.
When her two dogs and two small children allow it, she is focused on amateur illustration and writing a book about the man who was once the world’s youngest dictator in Sierra Leone.