A teenager detained in Egypt, determined to testify to the abuse he suffered during years of detention. A supporter of peace in Colombia, threatened with death. A father in India, fighting his patriarchal impulses to give his two daughters a better life.
With reporting from six continents and 34 countries, the Saturday Profile in 2023 revealed people making a difference, mostly under the radar. Each week, our correspondents often sought out not the famous nor the powerful, but the unknowns with stories worth hearing.
A Muslim cleric in Ukraine, now a doctor on the front lines of the war. An anti-corruption whistleblower from Bangkok, with (he would be the first to admit it) a dodgy past. A scientist and owner of a hair salon in Paris, dedicated to styling curly hair.
Some of our subjects talked about major news trends, such as the first mate of African heat; a former fisherman dedicated to persuading his fellow Senegalese not to emigrate to Europe; and a rap producer in France, who lost his voice to ALS and was experimenting with artificial intelligence to replace it.
Johannes Fritz once taught endangered ibises the migration route through the Alps with an ultralight aircraft. Due to climate change, he decided that he should use the same innovative method to show them a much longer route to a winter refuge , otherwise the birds, which had once died in the wild, would have completely disappeared a second time.
“Two or three years and they would become extinct again,” Fritz said.
—By Denise Hruby, photography by Nina Riggio
Lisa LaFlamme was fired after a decade-long television career, not long after she stopped dying her hair, sparking debates across Canada about sexism, ageism and graying.
“Most of the comments I received were not for months in Baghdad or Afghanistan, or any other story, but when I let my hair go gray, bar none,” Ms. LaFlamme said. “And I will say, 98% positive, except for a couple of men and a woman – it’s funny that I can actually remember this – but they were summarily trashed on social media because women support women.”
—By Norimitsu Onishi, photography by Ian Willms
On stage in a dark auditorium in front of 2,000 fans in central Tokyo, Shinjiro Atae, a J-pop idol, revealed something he’s kept hidden most of his life: He’s gay.
“I don’t want people to fight like me,” Atae said, making an extremely unusual announcement in conservative Japan.
—By Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida, photography by Noriko Hayashi
After filming her part in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” María Mercedes Coroy returned to her life of farming and trading in a Guatemalan town at the foot of a volcano.
“People ask me what I do after filming,” Ms. Coroy said. “Back to normal.”
—By Julia Lieblich, photographs by Daniele Volpe
After 17 years in France, Tharshan Selvarajah has yet to apply for citizenship. But he baked bread for President Emmanuel Macron.
He said his hands make his bread special.
“My mother’s chicken curry and my wife’s may use the same chicken but they don’t taste the same,” he said. “God gave me hands to make the best baguette in France! “I’m never angry with the flour while I’m kneading.”
—By Roger Cohen, photographs by Dmitry Kostyukov
The fight for change cost Narges Mohammadi her career, separating her from her family and depriving her of freedom. But one cell failed to silence her.
“I sit in front of the window every day, look at the greenery and dream of a free Iran,” Ms. Mohammadi said in a rare and unauthorized telephone interview from inside Tehran’s Evin prison. “The more they punish me, the more they take from me, the more determined I become to fight until we achieve democracy and freedom, nothing less.”
In October, four months after this profile was published, Ms. Narges won the Nobel Peace Prize.
—By Farnaz Fassihi
Moha Alshawamreh is among the few Palestinians working in Israel’s tech sector. His daily commute shows both the injustices of life in the West Bank and an exception to them.
“My message is that we should learn more from each other,” Alshawamreh said. “Let’s break down the walls and talk and put ourselves in each other’s shoes and see each other as two traumatized people.”
(This profile was published in March, seven months before a Hamas-led attack on Israel led to war in Gaza.)
— By Patrick Kingsley, photography by Laura Boushnak
South Korean writer Hwang In-suk feeds stray cats during night walks around Seoul. Routine informs his poems about loneliness and impermanence.
“I discovered worlds that I wouldn’t have found if I hadn’t been feeding the cats at night,” he said during a recent night walk.
—By Mike Ives, photography by Jun Michael Park
Dan Carter has been on the streets for 17 years. His experience informs his political agenda as mayor of Oshawa, Ontario, a city of 175,000 struggling with overdoses and affordability.
“For 17 years I was an absolutely horrible individual,” Mr. Carter said of his years as a drug addict. “Horrible individual. “I lied, I cheated, I stole.”
— By Ian Austen, photo by Ian Willms
For his fellow exiles, Sadiq Fitrat Nashenas, an 88-year-old singer from a golden age, evokes the Afghanistan they left behind, and what might have been.
“I was just trying to hold on to my music, because music takes me to God, to the heavens,” he said before taking the stage for a recent concert, his first public performance in nearly 20 years. “Life without music is a mistake.”
—By Mujib Mashal, photography by Jim Huylebroek
Nomcebo Zikode, the South African singer of the pandemic hit “Jerusalema” that inspired a global dance challenge, wrote the chorus while battling her own depression.
“As if there was a voice saying you have to kill yourself,” Ms. Zikode said, describing her depression at the time. “I remember talking to myself saying, ‘no, I can’t kill myself. I have my children to raise. I can’t, I can’t do this.’”
—By Lynsey Chutel, photography by Alexia Webster
Being the leader of Kherson may seem more like a curse than an honor. But one woman doesn’t give up, even though the Russians are sitting right across the river and bombing her city almost every hour.
“If I could disappear into the air and end this war, I would,” said Halyna Luhova, the eldest. “I would easily sacrifice myself to end this hell.”
—By Jeffrey Gettleman, photography by Ivor Prickett