Award-winning author based in Berlin, Germany.
Working on a book for Bodleian Library Press.
Co-author of Butterfly, the true story of Yusra Mardini, Syrian refugee, swimmer, and Olympian, the inspiration behind Netflix's The Swimmers.
Co-author of They Don't Teach This, a memoir by England football star and whistle-blower Eniola Aluko.
Get in touch: leblondjosie@gmail.com
Books
Butterfly is the inspiring story of how one woman saved fellow refugees from drowning—and how she went on to become an Olympic swimmer. When young Syrian refugee Yusra Mardini realized her boat's engine shut down as she was traveling from Syria to Greece with other refugees, there was no hesitation: she dove into the water. Surfacing, she heard desperate prayers and sobbing from the passengers in the sinking boat above her. Between the waves, her elder sister Sarah screamed at her to...
From war-torn Syria to the 2016 Rio Olympics, two young sisters embark on a harrowing journey as refugees, putting both their hearts and champion swimming skills to heroic use. Based on a true story. Directed by Sally El-Hosaini.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS* Eni Aluko: 102 appearances for England women's national football team. First female pundit on Match of the Day. UN Women UK ambassador. Guardian columnist. First class honors law degree. Now an inspirational author.
Reviews
Trained relentlessly by her father in Syria, Mardini helped steer a people-laden dinghy to safety, then competed in the Olympics
Three books relate the individual accounts of people caught up in events larger than themselves.
The extraordinary tale of a Syrian woman's journey from her war-torn country all the way to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil.
When the striker called out racism in the England camp, it ended her international career. She explains why the fight was worth it
For Eniola Aluko, the bleakest moment came not when Mark Sampson dropped her from the England side on the pretext of “un-Lioness behaviour”, or even when he told her to make sure her Nigerian relatives did not bring the Ebola virus to Wembley.
A look back on Eni Aluko's phenomenal career and life thus far ahead of the release of her book, They Don't Teach This.
Journalism
Berlin's disused Tempelhof airport is to temporarily house more than a thousand refugees, the city senate has confirmed, as the search for large-scale emergency accommodation in the German capital grows more frantic.
It was the fastest-selling show the Victoria and Albert Museum has ever staged. But when the David Bowie Is exhibition moves to Berlin this summer, there will be a few notable tweaks. Bowie's cathartic years in the chrysalis of divided Berlin are counted as among the singer's most innovative.
If you can remember it, you probably weren't there, as the old adage goes. What was true of the summer of love generation applies also to Berlin's 1990s techno scene, the subject of the city's latest blockbuster exhibition.
Many of those on board the Kindertransport trains to UK never saw their parents again
BERLIN (Reuters) - British artist and anti-surveillance activist James Bridle is illuminating Germany with artwork exploring the darkest state secrets, cover-ups and information blackouts. Bridle's "The Glomar Response", showing this month at the newly opened Nome gallery in Berlin, resonates in a country where revelations by former U.S.
Dinner for One sketch was instant hit when it aired in 1972 and has achieved cult status
A Berlin-based artist who put up billboards advertising fake real estate projects in protest against runaway property development received more than 200 calls from would-be investors who didn't get the joke. Three billboards appeared six weeks ago across Berlin advertising luxury new-build developments at in-demand locations. "Available 2021," the billboards state.
Chancellor also tells Christian Democrats she will not seek re-election as party chairwoman in December
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s preferred successor, Armin Laschet, might have won the leadership of her center-right Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, but he faces an uphill battle to lead the country’s most powerful political force into a general election in September—the first of the post-Merkel era.
Derelict in appearance, the two-story detached building in an otherwise well-to-do suburb of Salzburg in Austria appears not to have been inhabited for years. The back garden is a neglected wilderness, overgrown with knee-high creepers and debris, overhanging, unpruned trees and blanketed in a mulsh of dead leaves.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s retirement plans collapsed last week when her hand-picked successor resigned. Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union is now searching for a new leader, even as it grapples with an identity crisis after shedding supporters to left-leaning and far-right parties.
Young CDU members are excited by a fresh start in Germany once the only leader they have known stands down
German party's lurch to the right likely to benefit AfD and Greens in regional vote on Sunday
The lights were all out, the corridors were deserted. Only one computer screen was still glowing at Freiburg's Institute for Advanced Studies. Newly-arrived American academic Kristen Ghodsee was working late in her office. Then there was a knock at the door, and in came the institute's director.