James Verini

James Verini is a features writer at The New York Times Magazine, specializing in the coverage of war and conflict, and the author of They Will Have to Die Now: Mosul and the Fall of the Caliphate. His journalism has also appeared in National Geographic Magazine, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, and elsewhere. Verini has written about combat, civil war, jihadism, international crime, and war crimes prosecutions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestine, Sudan, Ukraine, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Honduras, Mexico, and other places. His work has received a National Magazine Award and a George Polk Award and been nominated for multiple Pulitzer Prizes.

They Will Have to Die Now: Mosul and the Fall of the Caliphate was published in the U.K. in 2019 by the OneWorld imprint of Bloomsbury. A firsthand account of the war against the Islamic State, the book was the result of nearly a year of frontline reporting in Iraq. The Times of London called They Will Have to Die Now “a poignant and detailed profile, beautifully written, of people in war.” The Telegraph called it “a necessary book” that “takes on the ambitious project of reporting from the front lines of the war with Isil in Iraq, in a way that is attentive to the humanity of those embroiled in it.” It was named a Best Book of 2019 by Foreign Affairs.