Cecilia Uddén is an award-winning journalist, foreign correspondent and radio-show anchor for Swedish Radio. She is currently Middle East correspondent and bureau chief in Cairo. Previously, she was from 2006 to 2011 Middle East correspondent and bureau chief in Amman.

She is considered one of the most highly respected correspondents on Swedish Radio. She is also controversial and known for her frank comments, for her fearless approach to sensitive issues as well as authorities, and for her ability to describe places, situations and people, and to approach people and portray them in a way that brings the world closer to Swedish radio-listeners.

She reported from the Middle East during the so-called optimistic years of the Oslo peace process and regularly visited the “tailor in Gaza”, Farouk, who became a household name in Sweden, commenting on Yasser Arafat, the plight of the Palestinian people, and daily life in Gaza. During the years 1998-2003 (from “Lewinsky to the invasion of Iraq”) Cecilia Uddén reported from Washington DC, but she also went on several reporting trips to small-town America, one of which evolved around the theme question: “how many bathrooms does the American have?”

Cecilia Uddén has received all of the major Swedish journalism awards, including the “Swedish Pulitzer” twice.

She lives in Cairo with her husband, literary critic and publisher Otto Mannheimer. They have two sons, Edgar, born in 1993, and Arthur, born in 1997.

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