The Australian Women's Register

Brooks worked for the Sydney Morning Herald before joining the Journal’s Australasian bureau in the mid-1980s and then transferring to the Middle-East. She spent several years as a Middle-East correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. Brooks reported on the Iran-Iraq war, the Palestinian uprising and the Gulf War. From 1993 to 1994 she was the United Nation’s correspondent covering the peacekeeping operations in Somalia.

Her first book Nine Parts of Desire: the Hidden World of Islamic Women was published in 1995. In 1999, Brooks was the recipient of the Kibble Literary Award for Women Writers for her second publication Foreign Correspondence. Her third publication, Years of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, was released in 2001.

Brooks is married to American journalist Tony Horwitz and they have a son, Nathaniel.