Scott Peterson (writer)

Career summary

After his stint as a Middle East correspondent working on Iran issues for The Christian Science Monitor in Amman, then as Moscow Bureau Chief, Scott Petersen started work as the Bureau Chief in Istanbul. Besides, he also works as a photographer for Getty Images. His work across three continents spanning over two decades, reporting and photographing on "power and conflict" presented in coherent narratives, has made him one of the most experienced and widely traveled foreign correspondent of his time. His extensive travels to Iran, crossing more than 30 times, produced his book, Let the Swords Encircle Me: Iran—A Journey Behind the Headlines (Simon & Schuster, Sept. 2010), based on Iran's politics, history, and culture. The book was awarded as one of the "Best Books of 2010" by Publishers Weekly. During his career as a photo-journalist, he has covered, Algiers, Beirut, and the entire Russia and the Central Asia. In 1999, he had to travel with the Taliban in Afghanistan. During his assignment in Iraq at the time of the Kurdish Revolt in 1991, he had to flee the country with more than a million Kurds when the resistance army was defeated at the hands of Saddam Hussein's forces.

In 2002, Scott's work in Northern Iraq won him the "Citation of Excellence" award from the Overseas Press Club of America. He also worked for The Daily Telegraph (London) covering the Former Yugoslavia on conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Serbia.