Nabih Bulos/Los Angeles Times
& Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times
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38-year-old Marcus Yam, who was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, was named the 49th Pulitzer Prize winner along with four other journalists for his coverage of the departure of US forces after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
According to Los Angeles Times, for whom he is a foreign correspondent and photojournalist, this Pulitzer is the culmination of all the great work Yam has produced over the last seven years at the US daily.
His editors describe his work as “stellar” and have “deep respect and admiration for him, his work ethic, courage, and stoicism amid the dangers and restrictions he faced at the time”.
He arrived in the country on 14 August 2021, just a day before the capital Kabul had been taken over by Taliban forces.
For two months, Yam documented the stories of the Afghan people whose lives had been affected by the historic change in the country.
Los Angeles Times said Yam “courageously and relentlessly pursued a number of human interest stories even as other Western news organisations exited the country due to security issues”.
Since joining the US newspaper in 2014, he has covered a wide range of topics, including humanitarian issues, social justice, terrorism, foreign conflicts, natural disasters, politics, and celebrity portraiture.
In 2019, Yam was awarded the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award for his documentation of the everyday plight of Gazans during deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip in Palestine.
He has also been part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning breaking news teams.
Yam’s most recent work covers the conflict in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.