Michael Thumann heads the Middle East desk for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit. From Istanbul, he writes about the Arab world, Turkey and Greece. He has also coordinated the paper’s foreign coverage, worked as a correspondent in Moscow and acted as Southeast Europe political editor.

Thumann, educated at Berlin's Free University, Columbia University and in St. Petersburg, had a long relationship with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC. He returned to Washington again in 2010 as a Bosch Fellow where he focused on Turkish foreign policy. He has also published work on Turkey, Russia, and Islam, as well as that religion's relationship with the West.

In his finalist entry, written with Julia Gerlach, Thumann explores the role of women's rights in the Arab Spring. The article focuses on an image from Tahrir Square that ricocheted around the world. A veiled young woman is dragged and beaten by Egyptian military during a protest there. Her face is covered, her torso bare except for her bright-blue bra. She became a symbol for the suffering of many Egyptian women, whose voices are often unheard in this male-dominated society. What does this woman represent? What happened to her? And will women end up benefiting from the revolution or be overlooked yet again.

Link to story: "The Revolution Devours its Women"