Ruth Massey was born in Marienbad, Czechoslovakia, and grew up in England. After living in Paris for a number of years, she came to the United States and worked for the UN in New York as a photographer and journalist for the United Nations Development Programme. Her work took her to more than fifty countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Her photographs and articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Nation, The Miami Times, The Christian Science Monitor, US News and World Report, National Geographic, Le Figaro and, on the web, Archipelago.