Robin Wright

International journalist wih profound knowledge concerning the Middle East

A journalist and the author of 5 books, most recently “Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East,” Robin Wright has reported from more than 130 countries on six continents. She has written for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Sunday Times of London, CBS News and The Christian Science Monitor, among others.

Besides a long career in journalism, Ms. Wright was 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 and has been a television commentator on ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN news programs, including "Meet the Press," "Face the Nation," "This Week," “Nightline," the PBS Newshour, "Frontline," "Larry King Live," "Washington Week in Review," as well as many other American, European and Asian programs.

She is also the recipient of many awards, including 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 was also the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant and in 2001, she won the Weintal Prize for “the most distinguished diplomatic reporting.”  In 2003, she won the United Nations' correspondents Gold Medal award for coverage of international affairs.

Her books include: “The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran” (one of the 25 most memorable books of the year 2000); “Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam”; “Flashpoints: Promise and Peril in a New World” (co-authored with Doyle McManus), and “In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade.”

Her newest book, “Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East” captures the Middle East in the midst of an historic transition. It draws on 35 years of reporting—through wars, revolutions and uprisings as well as the birth of new democracy movements and a new generation of activists—in two dozen countries. The transformation that has swept the rest of the world over the past quarter century—with communism's demise in eastern Europe, apartheid's collapse in Africa, and the end of military dictatorships in Latin America—is finally reaching the last bloc of countries to hold out against the democratic tide. But the Middle East's transition is also already proving to be the most painful for both those inside and outside the region.

Both The New York Times and The Washington Post named “Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East” as one of the top books of 2008.

Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright called “Dreams and Shadows” a fascinating read for anyone who likes true human drama. “Only Wright could have written ‘Dreams and Shadows’ because only Wright has traveled so widely, interviewed such diverse leaders, and brought so much wisdom to analyzing the region’s many-sided puzzles. This volume, full of mesmerizing detail and large truths, sets a new standard for scholarship on the modern Middle East."

Robin Wright READ Robin Wright: Robin Wright's Blog Robin Wright On Our Blog "Dreams and Shadows " on Amazon

PRAISE FOR Robin Wright:

• Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright called “Dreams and Shadows” a fascinating read for anyone who likes true human drama. “Only Wright could have written ‘Dreams and Shadows’ because only Wright has traveled so widely, interviewed such diverse leaders, and brought so much wisdom to analyzing the region’s many-sided puzzles. This volume, full of mesmerizing detail and large truths, sets a new standard for scholarship on the modern Middle East."