Meet Ian Urbina
The Outlaw Ocean series was originally published in The New York Times, where Ian Urbina (See: Wikipedia) has been an investigative reporter for over two decades. Several of his stories have been adapted into major feature films, including The Outlaw Ocean which was purchased by Netflix and Leonardo DiCaprio.
During his career, Ian has won a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News, a George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting, and his work has been nominated for an Emmy Award. He has degrees in history and cultural anthropology from Georgetown University and the University of Chicago. Before joining The Times, he was a Fulbright Fellow in Cuba and he also wrote about the Middle East and Africa for various outlets including the Los Angeles Times, Harper’s and Vanity Fair. He lives in Washington D.C. with his family.
The Outlaw Ocean reporting, almost all done offshore, took Ian across 5 seas and 14 countries in Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean, South America, and the Middle East. It resulted in 8 front-page stories in The New York Times and a book published by Knopf Doubleday. While reporting for the book, Ian was joined by an award-winning photographer from Brazil named Fábio Nascimento.
In the course of writing The Outlaw Ocean, Ian recounted the story of a Burmese migrant who had been shackled by the neck on a trawler and enslaved at sea for 3 years. He shadowed a Tanzanian stowaway who, discovered at sea by an angry crewmember, was set overboard on a raft and left to die.
In the North Atlantic, racing to catch up with a high-seas chase of Interpol’s Most Wanted pirate ship, Ian witnessed a near mutiny. He stayed on a Thai trawler with 40 Cambodian boys who work 20-hour days, barefoot, rain or shine, on a slippery deck, just one misstep from disaster. The Outlaw Ocean is available in hardcover, Kindle and audio book. Click here to buy.
