Sarah A. Topol is an award-winning journalist and writer at The Atlantic. For nine years, she was a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, where she wrote nine cover stories on subjects as varied as the young boys kidnapped by Boko Haram, the Rohingya genocide, the war in Ukraine, the global fertility industry, and the militarization of the Pacific. She has reported from more than 40 countries, focusing on the effects of geopolitical change on ordinary lives.
Sarah grew up in New York City and speaks fluent Russian. She moved to Cairo in 2008 and to Istanbul in 2013, and now splits her time between Portugal and the United States.
Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics, finalist (2026, 2025)
George Polk Award, Sydney Schanberg Prize (2025)
National Magazine Award for Feature Writing (2025, 2020)
Michael Kelly Award (2025)
Overseas Press Club, Ed Cunningham Award for Best Magazine Feature (2025, 2021)
Poynter Journalism Prize, Deborah Howell Award for Writing Excellence (2025)
Fetisov Journalism Award, Outstanding Contribution to Peace (2024)
National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, finalist (2023)
True Story Award, finalist (2023)
Marie Colvin Award for Foreign Correspondence (2021)
True Story Award (2021)
Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma, finalist (2020, 2018)
Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism (2012)
Sarah's investigation into the underworld of the global fertility trade was a finalist for the 2026 Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics and received a citation from the Overseas Press Club's Joe and Laurie Dine Award for Best International Human Rights Reporting. It was also longlisted for the One World Media Freelance Investigative Journalism Award.
Her piece about Russian military deserters was published as a special issue of The New York Times Magazine. It won the 2025 George Polk Award's Sydney Schanberg Prize, the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, the Michael Kelly Award, the Poynter Journalism Prize's Deborah Howell Award for Writing Excellence, and the Overseas Press Club's Ed Cunningham Award for Best Magazine Feature. The article was also released as a five-part audio series read by Liev Schreiber and published in Italian translation as a book.
Her article on how America's brinkmanship with China in the Pacific is placing the burden of great-power conflict on the nation's most ignored and underrepresented citizens won the 2024 Fetisov Journalism Award for Outstanding Contribution to Peace.
Her story about the political uprising in Belarus was a finalist for both the 2023 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and the 2023 True Story Award.
Sarah's reporting on Taiwan and Hong Kong was honored with the Newswomen's Club of New York's 2021 Marie Colvin Award for Foreign Correspondence.
Her article about a young Uyghur woman trying to free her parents from the Xinjiang concentration camps received the 2020 Overseas Press Club Ed Cunningham Award for Best Magazine Feature and was a finalist for the 2020 Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma.
Her piece about the Rohingya genocide won the 2020 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and appears in The Best American Magazine Writing 2020.
Her article about Nigerian boys abducted and forced to fight for Boko Haram received a citation from the Overseas Press Club for best international reporting on human rights, and was a finalist for the 2018 Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma. She won the 2012 Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism for her coverage of the civil war in Libya, for GQ.
Her trip to meet the Bedouin tribesmen who kidnap foreign tourists in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, written for The Atlantic, is featured in The Best American Travel Writing. Her story about a Siberian town besieged by bears is anthologized in Out There: The Wildest Stories Ever Featured in Outside Magazine.
Sarah's work has also appeared in Businessweek, Esquire, Foreign Policy, Fortune, GQ, Harper's, Newsweek, The New Republic, New York, Outside, Popular Science, Politico, Slate, and Travel + Leisure, among others. She has been a Nation Institute Investigative Fund grantee, an International Women's Media Foundation fellow, and a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting grantee. She has appeared as a guest on the BBC, CNN, and NPR, and has spoken at Princeton, Columbia, NYU, and Georgetown, among other universities.