Amien Essif

Born in:
Dijon, France

Languages:
English, French, German

Degrees/Journalistic experience:

• Bachelors in English Literature and French Studies from the University of Tennessee and the University of Montpellier III
• Reported on protests and the labor movement in Chicago for In These Times magazine and wrote essays for the Guardian and Aljazeera.
• DW Traineeship, 2016-2018
• Reporter, editor, and presenter at DW News since 2018
   

With DW since:
2016

A favorite quote:
“Ideology does not reside primarily in stories invented by those in power to deceive others, it resides in stories invented by subjects to deceive themselves.” - Slavoj Zizek

 

My personal hero:
Allen Ginsberg, who lived the fullest life and who is proof enough for me that there are from time to time new things under the sun.

 

What do I strive to be as a journalist?
An iconoclast. Every hero deserves scrutiny, every answer deserves another question.

 

7 images that I can’t get out of my head:

• Hamburg on fire during the G20 summit protests in 2017
• The Guardian’s US election map on the morning of November 8, 2016
• The vast and desolate sea between Libya and Lampedusa
• Six of Monet’s “Stacks of Wheat” side-by-side at the Art Institute of Chicago
• The debris left on stage after a production of Hamlet in Avignon
• The World Trade Center towers billowing smoke
• The planet Saturn. Most people don’t know you can see it in all its glory through a cheap telescope - and there’s a lesson in that for journalists