{{Short description|Swiss journalist and author}} {{Infobox person | name = Monika Bolliger | image = MonikaBolliger-SpheresZurich31012023-ByRomanDeckert.jpg | caption = Bolliger in 2023 during a book presentation in Zürich. }}
'''Monika Bolliger''' (born 28 March 1983<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Chatterjee |first=Robert |date=2018-05-07 |title=Scholl-Latours Erben: Monika Bolliger |url=https://magazin.zenith.me/de/kultur/wie-halten-sie-es-mit-scholl-latour-0 |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=Zenith |language=de}}</ref>) is a Swiss journalist and author with a focus on Middle Eastern affairs.
== Early life and education == Bolliger was born in Affoltern am Albis, a town and a municipality in the district of Affoltern in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.<ref name=":0" /> She attended high school in Urdorf, a municipality close to Zürich. As she stated in a later interview, it was a history teacher there who kindled her enthusiasm for questions about the causes of conflicts and the functioning or failure of social systems.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Gnirss |first=Lisa |last2=Rubin |first2=Valentin |date=30 August 2016 |title="Ich weiss nicht, was ich wäre, wenn ich nicht Geschichte studiert hätte." |url=https://www.etue.ch/ich-weiss-nicht-was-ich-waere-wenn-ich-nicht-geschichte-studiert-haette/ |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=etü – HistorikerInnen-Zeitschrift. |language=de}}</ref>
After graduating from high school, she began studying general history at the University of Zurich. A seminar that, in a change of perspective, dealt with the Arab view of the Crusades, prompted Bolliger to choose Arabic as a minor subject in addition to international law.<ref name=":0" /> To expand her language skills beyond Standard Arabic and to learn the Levantine dialect,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Eggmann |first=Sabine |date=7 May 2019 |title=Berufsportrait: Monika Bolliger, freischaffende Journalistin und Forscherin |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMt6t6s0V9Y |access-date=24 May 2023 |website=Fachportal "Kulturen und Gesellschaften". |language=de}}</ref> she went to Damascus University in 2006 for one year.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bolliger |first=Monika |title=Monika Bolliger |url=https://ch.linkedin.com/in/monika-bolliger-2151a816b |access-date=24 May 2023 |website=LinkedIn}}</ref> Bolliger has stated that ever since then she has felt a particularly close emotional bond with the Syrian capital.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bolliger |first=Monika |date=2015-11-27 |title=Notes From a Brief Return to Damascus |url=https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/syria/community/2015/11/27/notes-from-a-brief-return-to-damascus |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=The New Humanitarian |language=en}}</ref> After returning to the University of Zurich, she completed her studies in 2010 with a master’s thesis, supervised by Professor Hans-Lukas Kieser, about the issue of "Syrian nation, Arab nation – A conceptual analysis of the problem of forming a national identity in Syria: A comparison of textbooks about history under Hafiz al-Asad and Basar al-Asad".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lizentiate/MA |url=https://www.hist.uzh.ch/de/fachbereiche/neuzeit/privatdozierende/kieser/dr/l.html |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=Universität Zürich – Historisches Seminar |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Syrische Nation, arabische Nation? Eine Begriffsanalyse zur Problematik nationaler Identitätsbildung in Syrien: Geschichtsschulbücher unter Hafiz al-Asad und Basar al-Asad im Vergleich. |url=https://www.infoclio.ch/de/syrische-nation-arabische-nation-eine-begriffsanalyse-zur-problematik-nationaler-identit%C3%A4tsbildung |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=www.infoclio.ch |language=en}}</ref>
== Career == After a four-month traineeship at the daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), a German-language newspaper of record particularly for reporting on international affairs, and an internship at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (EDA), Bolliger started working at the NZZ in 2011 as an editorial assistant with a focus on the Middle East. The following year she became the NZZ's Middle East correspondent, at first based in Jerusalem until 2014, then in Cairo in 2015,<ref name=":1" /> and from 2016 on in Beirut.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Egloff |first=Rafael |last2=Yosief |first2=Saare |date=16 March 2016 |title="Mir scheint die Debatte in Europa manchmal absurd" |url=https://www.studizytig.ch/ausgaben/ausgabe-3/mit-scheint-die-debatte-in-europa-manchmal-absurd/ |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=bsz – bärner studizytig |language=de}}</ref> She described Arnold Hottinger (1926–2019), who was widely considered a legendary luminary in the journalism of Switzerland and beyond,<ref>{{Cite web |last=SDA/phz |date=2019-05-21 |title=Nahost-Koryphäe Arnold Hottinger gestorben |url=https://www.bernerzeitung.ch/nahost-koryphaee-arnold-hottinger-gestorben-419763305997 |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=Berner Zeitung |language=de}}</ref> as her great role model. In the summer of 2018, Bolliger resigned from her job at the NZZ because, according to her own statements, she needed to distance herself from the news in the region, but a sabbatical from the NZZ was not possible.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hollenstein |first=Edith |date=1 July 2018 |title=Neue Zürcher Zeitung: Monika Bolliger hat gekündigt |url=https://www.persoenlich.com/medien/monika-bolliger-hat-gekundigt |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=persoenlich.com |language=de}}</ref> In a farewell text, Peter Rásonyi – the NZZ director of the department for international reporting – praised her work:<blockquote>« Thanks to her commitment, her excellent language skills and her expertise, she came particularly close to the people who are far too often plagued by war, authoritarianism and poverty. She was able to convey an independent, authentic and multi-layered picture of the region with its many facets and contradictions ».<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rásonyi |first=Peter |date=29 June 2018 |title=Abschied von Monika Bolliger |url=https://www.nzz.ch/international/der-lange-arabische-winter-ld.1399174 |access-date=24 May 2023 |website=Neue Zürcher Zeitung |language=de}}</ref></blockquote>In the following three years, she worked as a freelance journalist, particularly for the Swiss online magazine Republik,<ref>{{Cite web |last= |title=Profil von Monika Bolliger |url=https://www.republik.ch/~mbolliger |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=Republik |language=de}}</ref> as a project manager in the field of peacebuilding and as an analyst for the Yemeni think-tank Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=Monika Bolliger |url=https://www.spiegel.de/impressum/autor-095e4123-09a6-4849-bac7-03900f775ee5 |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=Der Spiegel |language=de}}</ref> She also worked with the Yemeni writer, journalist and activist Bushra al-Maktari to publish her collection of eyewitness testimonies from the Yemen war in German language. Sandra Hetzl translated the book, which was initially published in Arabic, into German. It was published in 2020 by Constantin Schreiber, a prominent journalist with the ARD group of German public broadcasters, under the title "Was hast Du hinter Dir gelassen?: Stimmen aus dem vergessenen Krieg im Jemen" ("What did you leave behind? Voices from the forgotten war in Yemen").<ref>{{Cite web |last=Schader |first=Angela |date=7 August 2020 |title=Schmerz ist die Waffe, die nicht tötet: vierundvierzig Geschichten vom Krieg |url=https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/colum-mccann-und-bushra-al-maktari-erzaehlen-vom-sinnlosen-sterben-ld.1569405 |access-date=24 May 2023 |website=Neue Zürcher Zeitung}}</ref> In the same year, al-Maktari received the Johann Philipp Palm Prize for freedom of expression and freedom of the press.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-04-19 |title=Bushra al-Maktari Dossier |url=https://www.palm-stiftung.de/de/johann-philipp-palm-preis/festakt-zur-preisverleihung/2020/bushra-al-maktari-dossier/ |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=Palm-Stiftung |language=de}}</ref>
In March 2021, Bolliger started working as an editor for the Middle East in the international department of the German magazine ''Der Spiegel'' and its news website ''Spiegel Online''.<ref name=":2" /> In late 2021, she published a monograph on the Lebanese port city of Tripoli.<ref>{{Cite web |last=von Schwerin |first=Ulrich |date=24 January 2022 |title=Tripolis: Monika Bolliger zum Nahen Osten im Spiegel der Stadt |url=https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/tripolis-monika-bolliger-zum-nahen-osten-im-spiegel-der-stadt-ld.1663280 |access-date=25 May 2023 |website=Neue Zürcher Zeitung}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Thörner |first=Marc |date=7 March 2022 |title=Monika Bolliger – "Tripolis. Der Nahe Osten im Spiegelbild einer Stadt" |url=https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/monika-bolliger-tripolis-der-nahe-osten-im-spiegelbild-einer-stadt-dlf-ecf942a2-100.html |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=Deutschlandfunk |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=19 January 2022 |title=SWR1 Leute: Monika Bolliger |url=https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/swr1-leute/monika-bolliger-oder-nahost-korrespondentin-oder-schreibt-fuer-den-spiegel-und-erzaehlt-die-geschichte-der-libanesischen-hauptstadt-tripolis/swr/Y3JpZDovL3N3ci5kZS9hZXgvbzE1OTk2NzA |access-date=25 May 2023 |website=ARD Mediathek}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Gysling |first=Erich |date=2021-12-14 |title=Tripolis: Brennpunkt all dessen, was den Nahen Osten prägt |url=https://www.journal21.ch/artikel/tripolis-brennpunkt-all-dessen-was-den-nahen-osten-praegt |access-date=2023-05-24 |website=Journal21 |language=de}}</ref> In May 2024, after three years at ''Der Spiegel'', Bollinger started working as a radio producer at ''Echo der Zeit''. The news and background programme, which is aired daily and one of the oldest programmes in the German-speaking world, is widely considered as the flagship of the Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF; "Swiss Radio and Television") public broadcasting company.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lüthi |first=Nick |date=2024-01-17 |title=SRF: Neuzugänge von deutschen Toptiteln zum Radio |url=https://www.persoenlich.com/medien/neuzugange-von-deutschen-toptiteln-zum-radio |access-date=2024-06-18 |website=persoenlich.com |language=de-de}}</ref>
== Selected publications ==
* ''Writing Syrian History While Propagating Arab Nationalism – Textbooks about Modern Arab History under Hafiz and Bashar al-Asad''. in: Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society, Volume 3 (2011) No. 2. * ''Tripolis – Der Nahe Osten im Spiegelbild einer Stadt''. Rotpunktverlag, Zürich 2021, ISBN 978-3-85869-927-5
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == {{Commons category}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bolliger, Monika}} Category:1983 births Category:Living people Category:Writers from Zurich Category:University of Zurich alumni Category:21st-century Swiss journalists Category:21st-century Swiss women journalists Category:Writers on the Middle East Category:Der Spiegel people