Joanna Lillis

Joanna Lillis is a well-known Kazakhstan-based journalist who has been one of the main reporters on Central Asia over the past 17 years. Joanna is the author of Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan, a book that summarizes her extensive coverage of Kazakhstan's turbulent political history. Her work has been featured in various outlets, including The Guardian, The Economist, the Independent newspapers, the Eurasianet website and Foreign Policy and Politico magazines. Prior to settling in Kazakhstan in 2005, Joanna lived in Russia and Uzbekistan for a decade, where she worked for BBC Monitoring, the BBC World Service's global media tracking service. Previously, she studied Russian in the Soviet republics of Belorussia and Ukraine before the collapse of the USSR.