The books of May are here—fresh, fierce, and full of feels.
Robin Wright
Robin Wright has reported from more than 130 countries on
six continents for The Washington Post, the Los Angeles
Times, The Sunday Times of London, CBS News and The
Christian Science Monitor. She has also written for
The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs,
Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Times (London),
The Guardian (London), The International Herald
Tribune and many others.
Her foreign tours include five years in the Middle East, two
years in Europe, seven years in Africa, and several years as
a roving correspondent in those areas as well as Latin
America and Asia. She has covered a dozen wars and several
revolutions. She is now diplomatic correspondent for The
Washington Post.
In 2003, she was awarded the United Nations
correspondents' Gold Medal for coverage of international
affairs. In 2001, she won the Weintal Prize for "the most
distinguished diplomatic reporting." Among several other
awards, Ms. Wright won the 1989 National Magazine Award for
her reportage from Iran in The New Yorker and the
Overseas Press Club Award for "best reporting in any medium
requiring exceptional courage and initiative" for coverage
of African wars. She is also the recipient of a John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant.
Ms. Wright has interviewed a wide range of foreign leaders,
from South Africa's Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II to
Libya's Moammar Qaddafi and Jordan's King Hussein. She has
traveled over the past three decades with U.S. officials
from six administrations, ranging from President Carter to
President Bush, and from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Besides a long career in journalism, Ms. Wright has been a
fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
Yale University, Duke University, Stanford University, the
University of California at Santa Barbara and the University
of Southern California. She also lectures extensively around
the United States, in Europe and Asia.
Among her books, "The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and
Transformation in Iran" was selected as one of the 25 most
memorable books of the year 2000. Her earlier book "Sacred
Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam" was issued in November
2001 with updated chapters from her travels in Afghanistan
and running through the Sept. 11 attacks. She is also the
author of "Flashpoints: Promise and Peril in a New World,"
co-authored with Doyle McManus, which has been translated
into six languages, and "In the Name of God: The Khomeini
Decade."