Places & Travel

Pakistani novelist and New Yorker Mohsin Hamid. His debut novel is Moth Smoke

Syndicated columnist and biographer Richard Reeves. His most recent book is President Nixon: Alone in the White House (Simon & Schuster). Hes also written books about Presidents Reagan, Kennedy, Clinton, and Ford. Reeves is former chief political correspondent of The New York Times. He is currently Visiting Professor of Journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. He covered the Middle East for many years, work that won him two Pulitzer Prizes. He's also the author of the book, From Beirut to Jerusalem. The book looked at the inside of Arab and Israeli power circles, and examined the intefadeh and the perceptions American and Israeli Jews have of each other.

Journalist Ralph Blumenthal writes for The New York Times. He covered the trial following the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He’ll discuss the information about the workings of Osama Bin Laden’s organization that came to light during the trial.

Director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Omaha, Thomas E. Gouttierre. He also served on the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission to Afghanistan, and is the American specialist on Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and South Asia at the meetings of the US-Russian Task Force on Regional Conflicts.

Nigerian-born journalist Ken Wiwa writes for the Toronto Globe and Mail. He is the son of the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, one of Nigerias best-loved writers and vocal critics of the military rule. Saro-Wiwa was executed by the Nigerian military regime in 1995. Ken Wiwa has written the new memoir, In the Shadow of a Saint: A Sons Journey to Understand His Fathers Legacy.

Book Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews

A native of Mississippi, Barry Hannah has been writing for over thirty years - short stories, and novels set in the South. His writing is described as intensely personal, frenetic and comic. Truman Capote once called him the maddest writer in the USA His first book, the autobiographical novel Geronimo Rex (published in 1972) won the William Faulkner Prize for writing. He followed that with Airships, a collection of short stories now considered a classic.

Psychiatrist, peace activist and feminist Dr Ruchama Marton. She teaches at the Tel Aviv University Medical School Institute for Psychotherapy. She is also President of Physicians for Human Rights, Isreal.

Andrew Kromah lives and works in Sierre Leone. The country has been rated the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. For eight years now Kromah has run an independent radio station (KISS-FM) in Freetown and has reported on the rebels and government. Each week, as Mr. Owl he investigates local corruption. Twice his building has been burned down. During the 1996 election there, Kromah and his staff were forced to broadcast from the bush to escape injury.

Writer Alice Randall is the author of the controversial new parody of Gone with the Wind. Her book The Wind Done Gone (Houghton Mifflin). Randall retells the story of the antebellum South from the viewpoint of Cynara, a beautiful illegitimate mulatto woman, the daughter of a plantation-owning father, and a slave mother.

Editor and writer Walter Kirn's new novel Up in the Air (Doubleday) is about 35 year-old Ryan Bingham, a well-traveled business man who has a goal of accumulating one million miles in his frequent flyer account. Kirn is the literary editor for GQ and a contributing editor to Time and Vanity Fair. His fiction and non-fiction work has appeared in The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine. He also the author of two other novels, and a selection of short stories.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews McSorleys Wonderful Saloon by Joseph Mitchell.

New York Times reporters David Barstow and Don Van Natta, Jr. went to Florida following the closest presidential election in history. During a six month investigation, the two journalists found –under intense pressure from the Republicans, Florida officials accepted hundreds of overseas absentee ballots that failed to comply with state election laws.— (NYT 7/15/01) However, the outcome of the investigation is inconclusive. If all invalid overseas ballots had been thrown out, Bush would have still maintained a narrow margin over Gore.

Film critic Henry Sheehan reviews Moulin Rouge, starring Nicole Kidman.

El Tiempo is one of Columbia's leading dailies. Enrique Santos Calderon will talk about putting out a newspaper under the threat of kidnapping, torture or death from leftist guerillas and right wing paramilitary groups. In Columbia, more journalists have been killed in the past five years than in any other country.

Journalist Michela Wrong is the author of the new book In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo. The book examines the 1960 CIA plot to murder Patrice Lumumba who was then leader of newly independent Congo. The plot led to Lumumba's removal from power and the ascension of Mobutu Sese Seko. Wrong is a staff reporter with The Financial Times.

Film critic Henry Sheehan reviews the new Australian film Chopper.

Iranian filmmaker Bahman Farmanara. He began making films 30 years ago in his native country. Recently he returned to Iran after many years living in Canada, running a film festival and teaching. He's also returned to filmmaking. His new film Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine is his first in 20 years. He also stars in the film about a fictional film director making a film about his own death.

Journalist Mark Bowden's new book is called Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the Worlds Greatest Outlaw (Atlantic Monthly Press.) Its an investigation into the US government's role in bringing down Colombian cocaine kingpin and terrorist Pablo Escobar. BOWDEN will talk about Escobar, the world of drug trafficking and US/Colombia relations. MARK BOWDEN is a reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer. His previous book was the award winning bestseller Black Hawk Down. A film adaptation is in the works.