Jay Bahadur

Jay Bahadur is a Canadian author of The New York Times bestselling book The Pirates of Somalia (Deadly Waters in the UK and Australia, and Piratenkust in The Netherlands), published in seven countries and in four languages. 

 

When the Somali pirates exploded into the pages of the international news in late 2008, Bahadur quit his market research job and packed his bags, hopping a series of five flights into Somalia on a lone quest to meet some present-day buccaneers. He spent a total of three months in Puntland—an autonomous region of Somalia and the pirates' tribal homeland—conducting research with the journalist son of its newly-elected President. 

 

Bahadur has published articles in The Times, The New York Times, Financial Times, and Foreign Policy, and has advised the US government on Somali piracy. He has worked as a freelance correspondent for CBS News, and his media appearances include The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, CNN, Bloomberg, the BBC, NPR, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, amongst others.

 

In 2012, he held the position of managing editor of Somalia Report, an independent news service employing over one hundred Somali journalists in Somalia and Kenya.

 

Bahadur currently lives in Nairobi, where he works as an investigator.