Johann Hari

Johann Eduard Hari is an award-winning British-Swiss writer, journalist, and playwright. Hari is the author of three New York Times best-selling books and the Executive Producer of an Oscar-nominated movie and an eight-part TV series starring Samuel L. Jackson.

According to the official web, his books have been translated into 38 languages and been praised by a broad range of people, from Oprah to Noam Chomsky, from Elton John to Naomi Klein.

Hari was born in Glasgow to a Scottish mother and Swiss father. When he was a year old, his family moved to London, where he grew up and where he has lived for most of his life. Johann Hari graduated from King's College, Cambridge in 2001 with a double first in social and political sciences.

Johann Hari began his career as a journalist and was very successful. He has written over the past decade for some of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the Spectator, Le Monde Diplomatique, the Sydney Morning Herald, and Politico.

He was a columnist for The Independent and the Huffington Post and was named Newspaper Journalist of the Year at Amnesty International Media Awards, 2010, for the article Congo's tragedy: The War the World Forgot[ awards for his war reporting.

He has also appeared on NPR’s All Thing Considered, HBO’s Realtime With Bill Maher, The Joe Rogan Podcast, the BBC’s Question Time, and many other popular shows.

After leaving The Independent, Hari debuted with the book Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs (2012). Later it was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film ‘The United States Vs Billie Holiday’ (2021) and into a documentary series.

His second book, ‘Lost Connections: Uncovering The Real Causes of Depression — and the Unexpected Solutions’ was shortlisted for an award by the British Medical Association.

Hari's latest book, ‘Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention’, was published in January 2022 and became a best-seller in the US, UK, and Australia.

Johann Hari currently lives in London and writes full-time.

Interesting facts:

In 2011, Hari was accused of plagiarism in his journalistic reports and interviews. In addition, Hari was found to have fabricated elements of stories.

Johann’s TED talks ‘Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong’ (2015) and ‘This Could Be Why You Are Depressed or Anxious’ (2019) have been viewed more than 80 million times.

He has been named by the Daily Telegraph as one of the most influential people on the left in Britain, and by the Dutch magazine Winq as one of the twenty most influential gay people in the world.

Photo credit: johannhari.com