BIOGRAPHY

Arjen Westra (Zegveld, 1970) is a Dutch writer, multimedia journalist and photographer. He has lived and worked on the African continent for more than twenty years.

He studied Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam. His career in journalism began in 1994, as a reporter for the local paper he had once delivered. He went on to work for the Dutch higher-education press agency HOP and for the trade magazine ReclameWeek, where he ran the media desk.

In 2002 he moved to the African continent with a bag and a laptop. His first dispatches were for Het Parool and the Belgian daily De Standaard. Since then he has reported for Algemeen Dagblad, Leeuwarder Courant, Trouw, OneWorld and Vice Versa Al Jazeera, filing from Kenya, Uganda and Eastern Congo among other countries.

He is the author of three guidebooks in the Dominicus series and the editor of the Dominicus guide to Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. He works as a screenwriter and has appeared in Kenyan productions, among them Cajetan Boy’s On Your Marks and them, MTV Shuga Mashariki directed by Likarion Wainaina. He is a member of the Kenyan Screenwriters Guild.

Alongside his writing, he leads journeys through East and Southern Africa, building itineraries in which cultural depth and local knowledge come first.