Nicolas Pelham

Nicolas Pelham was selected for the 2025 Shortlist with Marwan Barghouti, the World’s Most Important Prisoner.

Nicolas Pelham is The Economist’s Middle East correspondent. He started work in Cairo as editor of the Middle East Times and since then has spent 30 years studying, travelling and writing in the region. He is the author of A New Muslim Order (2008), A History of the Middle East with Peter Mansfield (2012) and Holy Lands (2016) which explores the region’s pluralist past. Taking occasional breaks from journalism, he has worked as a Middle East analyst for the International Crisis Group, the United Nations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. In 2017 he won the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Journalism.