Nicholas Kristof
New York Time columnist
Two time Pulitzer Prize winner
speaking on
"Half the Sky: From Oppression to Opportunity for Women Worldwide"
Wednesday, October 28th
7:00 PM
UCSD Price Center West
free and open to the public . no tickets or reservations required
Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for The Times since 2001, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who writes op-ed columns that appear twice a week.
Mr. Kristof grew up on a sheep and cherry farm near Yamhill, Oregon. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College and then studied law at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, graduating with first class honors. He later studied Arabic in Cairo and Chinese in Taipei. While working in France after high school, he caught the travel bug and began backpacking around Africa and Asia during his student years, writing articles to cover his expenses. Mr. Kristof has lived on four continents, reported on six, and traveled to more than 140 countries, plus all 50 states, every Chinese province and every main Japanese island. He's also one of the very few Americans to be at least a two-time visitor to every member of the Axis of Evil. During his travels, he has had unpleasant experiences with malaria, mobs and an African airplane crash.
After joining The New York Times in 1984, initially covering economics, he served as a Times correspondent in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. He also covered presidential politics and is the author of the chapter on President George W. Bush in the reference book "The Presidents." He later was Associate Managing Editor of the Times, responsible for Sunday editions.
In 1990 Mr. Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, then also a Times journalist, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China's Tiananmen Square democracy movement. They were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism. Mr. Kristof won a second Pulitzer in 2006, for commentary for what the judges called "his graphic, deeply reported columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on genocide in Darfur and that gave voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world." He has also won other prizes including the George Polk Award, the Overseas Press Club award, the Michael Kelly award, the Online News Association award and the American Society of Newspaper Editors award. Mr. Kristof has taken a special interest in Web journalism and was the first blogger on The New York Times Web site; he also twitters and has a Facebook fan page and a channel on YouTube. A documentary about him, "Reporter," premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2009 and will be shown on HBO.
In his column, Mr. Kristof was an early opponent of the Iraq war, and among the first to warn that we were losing ground to the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. He was among the first to raise doubts about WMD in Iraq, he was the first to report that President Bush's State of the Union claim about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa was contradicted by the administration's own investigation. His columns have often focused on global health, poverty and gender issues in the developing world. In particular, since 2004 he has written dozens of columns about Darfur and visited the area ten times.
Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn are authors of "China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power" and "Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia." Their next book, "Half the Sky: From Oppression to Opportunity for Women Worldwide," will be published by Knopf in September. Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn are the parents of Gregory, Geoffrey and Caroline. Mr. Kristof enjoys running, backpacking, and having his Chinese and Japanese corrected by his children.
Half the Sky is a call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women in the developing world.
With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake a journey through Africa and Asia to meet an extraordinary array of women struggling under profoundly dire circumstances: a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery; an Ethiopian woman left for dead after a difficult birth; an Afghan wife beaten ruthlessly by her husband and mother-in-law. But we meet, as well, those who have triumphed—a formerly illiterate fistula patient who became a surgeon in Addis Ababa; an Indian woman who saved herself and her children from prostitution—and those who make it their work to provide hope and help to other women: the victim of gang rape who galvanized the international community and created schools in rural Pakistan; the former Peace Corps volunteer who founded an organization that educates and campaigns for women’s rights in Senegal. Through their stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to progress lies in unleashing women’s potential—and they make clear how each of us can help make that happen.
Fiercely moral, pragmatic, and inspirational,Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.
About the authors
Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, husband and wife, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China as New York Times correspondents. Mr. Kristof won a second Pulitzer for his op-ed columns in theTimes. He has also served as bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo, as an associate managing editor. At theTimes, Ms. WuDunn worked as a business editor and as a foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Beijing. They live in the New York area.
Advance praise for the book
“Women facing poverty, oppression, and violence are usually viewed as victims. Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’sHalf the Sky shows that unimaginable challenges are often met with breathtaking bravery. These stories show us the power and resilience of women who would have every reason to give up but never do. They will be an inspiration for anyone who reads this book, and a model for those fighting for justice around the world. You will not want to put this book down.”
-Angelina Jolie
“An unblinking look at one of the seminal moral challenges of our time. This stirring book is at once a savage indictment of gender inequality in the developing world and an inspiring testament to these women’s courage, resilience, and their struggle for hope and recovery. A devastating and unexpectedly uplifting read.”
-Khaled Hosseini, author,The Kite Runner
“I think it’s impossible to stand by and do nothing after reading Half the Sky. It does what we need most, it bears witness to the sheer cruelty that mankind can do to mankind.”
-George Clooney
“Half the Sky is a passionate and persuasive plea to all of us to rise up and say ‘No more!’ to the 17th-century abuses to girls and women in the 21st-century world. This is a book that will pierce your heart and arouse your conscience. It is a powerful piece of journalism by two masters of the craft who are tireless in their pursuit of one of the most shameful conditions of our time.”
-Tom Brokaw
“I read Half the Sky in one sitting, staying up until 3 a.m. to do so. It is brilliant and inspirational, and I want to shout about it from the rooftops and mountains. It vividly illustrates how women have turned despair into prosperity and bravely nurtured hope to cultivate a bright future. The book ends with an especially compelling "What you can do to exhort us all to action.”
-Greg Mortenson, author, Three Cups of Tea
“If you have always wondered whether you can change the world, read this book. Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have written a brilliant call to arms that describes one of the transcendent injustices in the world today—the brutal treatment of women. They take you to many countries, introduce you to extraordinary women, and tell you their moving tales. Throughout, the tone is practical not preachy and the book’s suggestions as to how you can make a difference are simple, sensible, and yet powerful. The authors vividly describe a terrible reality about the world we live in but they also provide light and hope that we can, in fact, change it.”
-Fareed Zakaria, author, The Post-American World
