Occupation Journalist Books The Brown Sahib Children Nury Vittachi | Role Author Name Tarzie Vittachi | |
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Born September 23, 1921
Colombo Ceylon ( 1921-09-23 ) Notable awards 1959 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts Died 1993, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom Alma mater Ananda College, University of Ceylon | ||
Tarzie Vittachi (September 23, 1921 – September 17, 1993), a Ramon Magsaysay Award-winning journalist (1959), was born in Colombo, Ceylon. He authored two popular columns "Bouquets and Brickbats", and "Fly by Night" in the Ceylon Daily News. He later became the youngest editor (at 32) of the oldest newspaper in Asia, The Ceylon Observer which was founded in 1834. He wrote a book known as Emergency 58 about the Government's involvement in the country's race riots known as 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom that won him the Magasaysay Prize in 1959 and led to his being declared persona non grata. From 1960 to 1965 he was Asian director of the International Press Institute, an organization of editors devoted to promoting the freedom of the press. He was, at the same time, a correspondent for The Economist, the BBC and The Sunday Times of London and wrote a column for Newsweek. A book about the role of the Children's Fund in arranging truces to protect children in time of conflict, called "Between the Guns," was published posthumously.
