Writer & Journalist

Jenna
Krajeski

Award-winning journalist and coauthor of books with Nadia Murad, Mondiant Dogon, and Saad Mohseni. Reporting on human rights, refugees, and the lives of women — from Cairo and Istanbul to Kabul and New York.

Work published in

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The Last Girl book cover
New York Times Bestseller

The Last Girl:
My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State

Tim Duggan Books  ·  2017

The harrowing and ultimately triumphant memoir of Nadia Murad — the Yazidi activist and survivor who became the first person to bring charges of genocide against ISIS to the International Criminal Court, and the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

"A powerful witness to atrocity and a brave call for justice."
The New York Times Book Review
Radio Free Afghanistan
Financial Times Best Book of the Year

Radio Free Afghanistan:
A Twenty-Year Odyssey for an Independent Voice in Kabul

HarperCollins  ·  2024

From Time 100 honoree Saad Mohseni, the story of his twenty-year effort to build Afghanistan's largest independent media company — and how that work endures even after the Taliban's return to power in 2021.

"Saad Mohseni did more to change Afghanistan than any single person."
Booklist
"The ultimate insider's guide to the recent history of Afghanistan — witty, wise, frank and perceptive."
William Dalrymple
Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds book cover
Kirkus Starred Review

Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds:
A Refugee's Search for Home

Penguin Press  ·  2021

The story of Mondiant Dogon — born in a Rwandan refugee camp, having fled violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a child — and his extraordinary journey from survival to advocacy, coauthored with a narrative grace that renders the unimaginable intimate.

"An eloquent and necessary plea for compassion for war refugees everywhere."
Kirkus Reviews (Starred)
"An immensely moving memorial to the Rwandan tragedy."
Publishers Weekly (Starred)
Radio Free Afghanistan book cover
An FT Best Book of the Year

Radio Free Afghanistan:
A Twenty-Year Odyssey for an Independent Voice in Kabul

HarperCollins  ·  2024

From Time 100 honoree Saad Mohseni, the story of a twenty-year effort to build a free and independent media company in Afghanistan — from a Kabul radio station in 2003 to a television empire, and ultimately to the Taliban's return in 2021.

"A start-up tale like no other — a skeleton key not only to the war in Afghanistan but to global media, diplomacy, and development in the twenty-first century."
Nick McDonell

Over more than a decade of international reporting, Jenna has covered the Arab Spring from Tahrir Square, the Kurdish conflict in Turkey and Iraq, asylum policy in the United States, and the intersection of gender and power worldwide.

The New Yorker

On-the-ground reporting from Egypt during the 2011 revolution, covering artists, dissidents, and women in Tahrir Square — including a meeting with writer Nawal El Saadawi.

The Nation

Reporting from the front lines of the Kurdish-ISIS conflict in northern Iraq, produced with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

The Nation

A portrait of Dream of Detroit, a Muslim-led community organization working to revitalize one of the city's most neglected neighborhoods.

Literary Hub

A wide-ranging conversation with Mondiant Dogon on the making of Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds, the difficulty of bearing witness, and writing as an act of survival.

The Fuller Project

An investigation into how proposed asylum rule changes during the pandemic would have effectively eliminated protections for women and girls fleeing gender-based violence.

Foreign Policy

Features on press freedom, civil society in Afghanistan, and international reporting that spans years of work with the Fuller Project.

Also published in

  • Harper's Magazine
  • The Atlantic
  • The New Republic
  • Slate
  • Library Journal
  • Al-Masry Al-Youm / Egypt Independent

The
writer's
story

Jenna Krajeski

Jenna Krajeski is a journalist and author whose work sits at the intersection of human rights, women's lives, and the long aftermath of conflict. Her writing is defined by deep collaboration with her subjects — a quality that has made her one of the most sought-after coauthors in literary nonfiction.

She is the coauthor of The Last Girl with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, and Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds with Rwandan refugee and advocate Mondiant Dogon. Her forthcoming book, I Choose My Beginning, returns her partnership with Murad to document life after the Nobel Prize.

Her journalism has taken her from Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution to the Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq. She has reported for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper's, The Nation, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among many others. Her reporting has taken her from the streets of Cairo during the Arab Spring to the Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq.

She lived and worked in Cairo and Istanbul before returning to the United States, where she reported for The Fuller Project, a newsroom focused on underreported stories about women globally. She is a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan.

Fellowship Knight-Wallace Fellow, University of Michigan (2015–2016)
Affiliation The Fuller Project for International Reporting
Reporting Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grantee
Based in New York City