Nayan Chanda

Who is Nayan Chanda?

Nayan Chanda is a former correspondent and editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review and co-author of numerous books on Asian politics, security and foreign policy issues. He is best known for his seminal book, Brother Enemy: The War after the War. He is currently the Director of Publications at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, and editor of the YaleGlobal Online, a webzine devoted to exploring globalization.

Chanda graduated with a degree in History at the prestigious Presidency College, Kolkata. He stood first in his class during his post-graduate degree in history from Jadavpur University. Between 1971 and 1974 he continued his studies in International Relations at the Sorbonne. In 1974 he was working on his thesis in the Sorbonne on the domestic roots of Cambodian foreign policy under Norodom Sihanouk when he was offered the job of Indochina correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review based out of Saigon. Curious to find out more about the Vietnam War, he decided to become a journalist to see history being made. In April 1975, Chanda decided to stay behind after the fall of Saigon.

Chanda reported as the Indochina Correspondent for the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review until 1980. In 1980, he was appointed Diplomatic Correspondent. From 1984 until 1989, Chanda was the Washington correspondent of the Review. He was also Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington in 1989-1990. In the 1990s he was editor, first, of the Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly and later the Far Eastern Economic Review.