About Hamilton Wende
Who is Hamilton?
Hamilton Wende is a freelance writer and television producer based in Johannesburg.
His articles have appeared in many international and South African newspapers, magazines and websites, including BBC, National Geographic Traveler, GQ, Maclean’s Magazine in Canada, TravelAfrica in the UK, The New Zealand Herald, The Buffalo News in the US, The Sunday Times, Business Day, The Sunday Independent in Johannesburg and many others.
In television he has worked for a number of international networks including National Geographic, CNN, BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera English, ZDF, ARD and a number of others. He has covered fifteen different wars in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The countries he has worked in include Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Rwanda, Congo, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Angola, Sudan, Eritrea, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan.
Journey Into Darkness, a documentary on the genocide in Rwanda he worked on for the BBC with producer David Harrison and correspondent Fergal Keane won the 1994 Royal Television Society’s International Current Affairs Award. A Life Less Fortunate, a film on children in South African prisons he worked on with Belinda Hawkins of SBS won the 1999 United Nations Association of Australia Media Award.
He has written ten books: His latest thriller, Red Air, reflects his experiences with the US Marines in Afghanistan.
His recent children’s books Arabella, the Secret King and the Amulet from Timbuktu and Arabella, The Moon and a Magic Mongongo Nut – are charming tweenie thrillers about Arabella and the magic mongongo nut that changes her life and involves her in a war between the hadedas and the insects in her garden in Johannesburg
Only The Dead. A thriller set in eastern Congo and Uganda about the hunt for the mysterious General Faustin to free his army of child soldiers called the Claws of God.
House of War A love story and thriller about searching for the lost diaries of Alexander the Great in the badlands of northern Afghanistan while being hunted by Al Qaeda. It was long-listed for the Sunday Times Fiction Award in 2010.
The King’s Shilling. A novel about WWI in East Africa published by Jacana in April 2005. It has been on the bestseller lists in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban and was long-listed for the Sunday Times Fiction Award in 2006
Deadlines From the Edge: Images of War from Congo to Afghanistan. Stories about his journeys into different parts of the world while working as television news producer in different parts of Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan. It was published in 2003 by Penguin SA. True North; African Roads Less Travelled is a non-fiction account of his work as a journalist in Africa. It was published in 1995 by William Waterman in Johannesburg. It was nominated for the 1995 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award.
A children’s picture book he wrote, The Quagga’s Secret, published by Gecko Books in Durban was selected as one of the ‘1995 South African Books of the Year’ by Jay Heale of Bookchat. In 1999 it was selected by Cambridge University Press in South Africa for an anthology of South African writing.
Hamilton Wende's Travels
