“Sanguine, unromantic and objective, Sarwar is also a compassionate reporter capable of finding heartrending human stories wherever he goes, which he often leavens with humour”

The Observer, London

Adnan won the Financial Times/Bodley Head Essay Prize, then wrote from Kabul for the FT on the Taliban and from the earthquakes in Gayan, Afghanistan. From northern Iraq he wrote for The Economist on foreign fighters joining the Kurds and from Calais for New Lines Magazine on people-smuggling gangs. He has been published in Five Dials, The Outpost in Beirut, The Guardian, the Telegraph writing about Salman Rushdie, the Iraq war,  identity and Chinese poetry. 

He was second camera on the Emmy award-winning and BAFTA nominated documentary, Escape from Kabul for HBO/BBC. He presented documentaries on South African gangs for Channel 4 where he won the Premio Luchetta Award for Reportage, on Iraq’s war and Pakistan’s Partition for the BBC and Afghanistan’s gun culture for Vice. In drama, he acted at the National Theatre, London and on television for ITV and the BBC playing soldiers and terrorists. 

His podcast, Taking Apart Terror won the Bronze Lovie and People's Lovie Winner in Podcasts: Crime & Justice and was shortlisted in the Documentary: National or International Affairs section of the New York Festivals Radio Awards. His photography from Afghanistan since the Taliban retook the country has been published at the BBC, HBO, Daily Mail and the Financial Times. 

Photo: Young boy with his wheelbarrow in Kabul, November 2021