John Rowland Ryle OBE is a British writer, anthropologist, social activist, filmmaker, teacher and publisher, with an interest in the history and culture of

Eastern Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historica ...

.Ascherson, N. (2 August 2012
"How It Felt to Be There"
''London Review of Books''. He is co-founder of the

Rift Valley Institute The Rift Valley Institute (RVI) is an independent, non-profit research and training organisation working with communities and institutions in Eastern Africa, including Sudan, South Sudan, the Horn of Africa, and the Great Lakes region. Established ...

, an
Legrand Ramsey Professor
of Anthropology at

Bard College Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark. Founded in 1860, ...

, New York.

Background

His father, John Creagh Ryle, a medical doctor and alpinist, was a general practitioner in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, where Ryle was born. His mother, Melody Ryle, née Jackson, was a stalwart of the local Family Planning Association and a noted amateur botanist and gardener. Ryle is a grandson of the pioneer of

social medicine The field of social medicine seeks to implement social care through # understanding how social and economic conditions impact health, disease and the practice of medicine and # fostering conditions in which this understanding can lead to a health ...

John Alfred Ryle John Alfred Ryle (1889–1950) was a British physician and epidemiologist. He was born the son of Brighton medical doctor R J Ryle and brother of the Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle. He was educated at Brighton College and Guy's Hospital where ...

, a nephew of the

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

Sir Martin Ryle, a great-nephew of the philosopher

Gilbert Ryle Gilbert Ryle (19 August 1900 – 6 October 1976) was a British philosopher, principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "ghost in the machine." He was a representative of the generation of British ord ...

, and a great-great grandson of

John Charles Ryle John Charles Ryle (10 May 1816 – 10 June 1900) was an English evangelical Anglican bishop. He was the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool. Life He was the eldest son of John Ryle, private banker, of Park House, Macclesfield, M.P. for Maccles ...

, evangelical Bishop of Liverpool in the last decades of the nineteenth century.

Life and work

Ryle was educated at

Shrewsbury School Shrewsbury School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13 –18) in Shrewsbury. Founded in 1552 by Edward VI by Royal Charter, it was originally a boarding school for boys; girls have been admitted into ...

and

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

, where he graduated in English Language and Literature. He pursued postgraduate studies in social anthropology, conducting fieldwork among the Agar

Dinka The Dinka people ( din, Jiɛ̈ɛ̈ŋ) are a Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan with a sizable diaspora population abroad. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Jonglei to Renk, in the region of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile (two out ...

communities in today's

South Sudan South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the ...

. In 1975 he became an assistant editor a
''The Times Literary Supplement''
During the printers' strike at Times Newspapers, he founded, with Richard Boston, the acclaimed but short-lived periodical ''Quarto'' (1978–1981). From 1982 to 1986 he worked for the '' Sunday Times'' in London as Deputy Literary Editor and, subsequently, as a feature writer. He has written for the '' London Review of Books'', the ''

New York Review of Books New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...

'', the ''

New Yorker New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to: * A resident of the State of New York ** Demographics of New York (state) * A resident of New York City ** List of people from New York City * ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925 * '' The ...

'', th
''Los Angeles Times''
and various scholarly periodicals, and is a contributing editor of ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

''. Ryle also worked as a doorman at th
Embassy Club
in Bond Street, London, as a

roustabout Roustabout (Australia/New Zealand English: rouseabout) is an occupational term. Traditionally, it referred to a worker with broad-based, non-specific skills. In particular, it was used to describe show or circus workers who handled materials ...

for the

Royal American Shows Royal American Shows (RAS) was a leading American traveling carnival company that operated from the 1920s to the 1990s in the United States and, until the 1970s, in Canada. The company promoted itself as the "Most Beautiful Show on Earth", with th ...

and the Canadian Pacific Railway, as ghost-writer of

Mick Jagger Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. His ongoing songwriting partnershi ...

's unpublished autobiography,Rolling Stone (26 May 1983)
"Ghosting the story of Mick Jagger"
''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

''.Hind, J. (13 September 1997)
"Start me up... again"
''The Independent''. and as a

travel writer The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern per ...

.Lau, J. (1988)
''Interview with Joan Lau: Travels of Discovery''
/ref> In the late 1980s, Ryle was a project officer at the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

in Brazil and lived in an Afro-Brazllian community in

Salvador da Bahia Salvador (English: ''Savior'') is a Brazilian municipality and capital city of the state of Bahia. Situated in the Zona da Mata in the Northeast Region of Brazil, Salvador is recognized throughout the country and internationally for its cuisi ...

. In the 1990s, he worked as a consultant to

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

and development organisations in Sudan and the Horn of Africa, including

Save the Children Fund The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...

(UK). His weekly newspaper column
"City of Words"
appeared in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' from 1995 to 1999. From 1996 to 1997, he was a research fellow of

Nuffield College, Oxford Nuffield College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is a graduate college and specialises in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. Nuffield is one of Oxford's newer c ...

. In the 1990s he became an activist in the

International Campaign to Ban Landmines The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations whose stated objective is a world free of anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions, where mine and cluster munitions survivors see their ri ...

. From 2001 to 2017, Ryle was successively chair and executive director of the

, a research and public information organisation operating in Eastern Africa that he founded wit
Jok Madut Jok
an
Philip Winter
He was a member of th
International Eminent Persons Group
reporting on slavery and abduction in Sudan.Ross, O. (2003

/ref>Skinner, E. B. (2008) ttps://books.google.com/books?id=-47aorGBguMC&q=A+crime+so+monstrous ''A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery'' Free Press. Since 2007, he has been ttp://www.bard.edu/academics/faculty/faculty.php?action=details&id=1582 Legrand Ramsey Professorof Anthropology at

, a liberal arts college in New York state. He has been a board member of th
Human Rights Watch Africa Divisionthe Media Development Investment Fund
and the scholarly journal ''

African Affairs ''African Affairs'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published quarterly by Oxford University Press on behalf of the London-based Royal African Society. The journal covers any Africa-related topic: political, social, economic, environmental ...

''. In 2022 he established a publishing company
City of Words
concentrating on works of reportage, life-writing and general non-fiction. Ryle was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen'
2021 Birthday Honours
for services to research and education in Sudan, South Sudan and the Horn of Africa.

Selected bibliography

Books

*
''Warriors of the White Nile: the Dinka''
(Time-Life Books, 1982) with Sarah Errington

Technical reports and academic research

''Local Peace Processes in Sudan: A Baseline Study''
(2006), with Mark Bradbury, Kwesi Sansculotte-Greenidge, Michael Medley
''Register of Persons Abducted from Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal, Sudan, 1983–2002''
(2004/2005), with Jok Madut Jok, Fergus Boyle, Brown Kanyangi Budambula

(2002) * ttp://www.swrtc.ca/docs/oil%20Investigation.pdf ''Report of an Investigation into Oil Development, Conflict and Displacement in Western Upper Nile, Sudan''(2001), with Georgette Gagnon

Essays, reporting and other contributions

"Remembering Paul Robeson"
(2018), ''The New York Review of Books''
"The Nuba"
(2008), ''Granta'', with Jack Picone
"The Many Voices of Africa"
(2006), ''Granta''
"Disaster in Darfur"
(2004), ''The New York Review of Books''
"Translating Caetano"
(2002) ''Granta''
"At Play in the Bush of Ghosts: Tropical baroque, African reality and the writings of Ryszard Kapuscinski"
(2001), ''The Times Literary Supplement''
"Burying the Emperor"
(2001), ''Granta''
"Children at War"
(2000), ''The New York Review of Books''
"The Hazards of Reporting Complex Emergencies in Africa"
(2000), ''Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems''
"Children in Arms"
(1999), ''The New York Review of Books''
"Zero Grazing"
(1992), ''London Review of Books''
"The Road to Abyei"
(1992), ''Worst journeys: The Picador book of travel''
"Kiss and tell"
(1990), ''London Review of Books''
"Miracles of the people: attitudes to Catholicism in an Afro-Brazilian religious centre in Salvador da Bahia"
(1988),
Vernacular Christianity: essays in the social anthropology of religion presented to Godfrey Lienhardt
'

Translations

(2003) * Caetano Veloso: Noites do Norte (2001)

Film and video

*
The Price of Survival

(1994)
Bright Star Productions (cameraman & co-director, with Bapiny Tim Chol) *
Witchcraft among the Azande

(1982)
Granada TV Disappearing World (anthropologist)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ryle, John 1952 births Living people Alumni of the University of Oxford Bard College faculty English anthropologists English newspaper editors English travel writers The New York Review of Books people Officers of the Order of the British Empire Writers from Shrewsbury People educated at Shrewsbury School