Last Correspondent: Anthony Shadid and the Search for Meaning in the Ruins of War

Description:

From Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Steve Fainaru and former Washington Post managing editor Philip Bennett comes the extraordinary story of foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid's journey through war and revolution in the Middle East.

In the historic decade following 9/11, Anthony Shadid was the world's most celebrated foreign correspondent and a uniquely perceptive interpreter of the Middle East. From the Iraq War to the upheavals of the Arab Spring, he wrote with empathy and literary power about the lives of ordinary people, producing moving and prescient dispatches for The Washington Post and The New York Times that foretold the disaster of the United States' occupation of Iraq and the collapse of the old order across the Arab world.

Shadid's own journey matched the drama and intrigue of the region he covered. Raised in the American heartland by wealthy Lebanese American parents, he reversed his family's migration story, learning Arabic, changing the pronunciation of his last name, and setting out on a quest for home that, over the years, would lead him to reclaim his roots in his family's ancestral town in southern Lebanon.

Shadid's pioneering journalism took him to the darkest corners of the Middle East and came at a tremendous cost: He was shot in Palestine, was captured and beaten in Libya, and, on the long night of February 16, 2012, died while being smuggled out of Syria during the country's brutal civil war. The absence of his voice, calling attention to humanity in the ruins of war, continues to be felt in the conflicts roiling places such as Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.

In The Last Correspondent, two of Shadid's closest colleagues tell the story of his life and tragic death in cinematic and unforgettable detail--a story as dramatic as any Shadid wrote.

Brief description: Steve Fainaru has worked as an investigative reporter, foreign correspondent, and sportswriter. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and an Emmy for Outstanding Sports Journalism. He is the author of three books, including the New York Times bestseller League of Denial, written with his brother, Mark Fainaru-Wada. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, writer Maureen Fan.

Review Quotes:

"From the ruins of war and the vapors of our recent history, The Last Correspondent gives us a story, a fable, a riveting narrative about the price we pay for the raw facts that guide nations. This is the kind of page-turning history that stays with you. But also, it's a tribute to a complicated hero willing to risk everything. A remarkable book."
--Timothy Egan, bestselling author of The Worst Hard Time and A Fever in the Heartland

"A landmark in the annals of war and journalism, The Last Correspondent is the inspiring and heartbreaking story of one reporter's search for truth and humanity amid the danger and chaos of the Middle East. Anthony Shadid's journey is compelling, revelatory and tragic--a story of our time, beautifully told."
--David E. Hoffman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Billion Dollar Spy and The Dead Hand