The New Yorker magazine calls Jon Lee Anderson a staff writer. Jon Lee calls himself a storyteller. For more than twenty years he’s been traveling to, and writing about, conflict zones around the world. From El Salvador to Uganda, Ireland to Israel.
Not surprisingly, his latest narratives come from Baghdad. Anderson checked into the Al Rashid Hotel weeks before the bombs started falling on the Iraqi capital. And he stayed in the city as the tanks rolled in and the looting began. What makes his work so distinctive from the daily wash of news is the people he writes about. The barber. The doctor. The violinist. The painter. The Ba’ath party official. Snapshots of those who live deep beneath the headlines. And would have otherwise stayed there, if not for his reporter’s eye.
Guests:
Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and author of The Lion’s Grave, Dispatches from Afghanistan.