Juanita León

Who is Juanita León?

Juanita León García is a Colombian journalist, writer and lecturer.

She was born in Colombia and graduated from law school at University of the Andes before moving to New York City to do a M.S. from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. She worked as a reporter on the Wall Street Journal Americas before returning to Colombia in 1998.

Ms León worked for the newspaper El Tiempo and for Semana magazine. She was editor-in-chief of semana.com and collaborated with the TV series Tiempos difíciles and Regreso a la Esperanza. She was one of the first journalists to reveal the links between several Colombian politicians and paramilitary groups.

Ms León was the editor of Años de fuego. In 2004 she published No somos muchos pero somos machos.

Her book País de plomo. Crónicas de Guerra [Country of Bullets. War Diaries] deals with Colombia's armed conflict at the beginning of the 21st century. It was released by the University of New Mexico Press in English. In 2006 she was awarded the Lettre Ulysses Award for the art of reportage and was named a Nieman Fellow by Harvard University.