Michela Wrong is a writer and journalist with more than twenty years' experience of covering Africa. She joined Reuters news agency in the early 1980s and was posted as a foreign correspondent to Italy, France and Ivory Coast. She became a freelance journalist in 1994, when she moved to then-Zaire and found herself covering both the genocide in Rwanda and the final days of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko for the BBC and Reuters. She later moved to Kenya, where she spent four years covering east, west and central Africa for the Financial Times.
She is the author of three books of non-fiction and a novel.
She was awarded the 2010 James Cameron prize for journalism that combines "moral vision and professional integrity." She is regularly interviewed by the BBC, Al Jazeera and Reuters on her areas of expertise. She has published opinion pieces and book reviews in the Observer, Guardian, Financial Times, New York Times, New Statesman, Spectator, Standpoint Foreign Policy magazine, and travel pieces for Conde Nast's Traveler magazine. She speaks fluent Italian and French. She is a consultant for the Miles Morland Foundation, which funds a range of literary festivals, workshops and scholarships for African writers. Michela Wrong lives in London.
"It is... a remarkable study in the exercise of power by a small
elite, and systematic mendacity in politics - which also resonates
with our current moment."--David Edgerton, The Guardian
"Do Not Disturb is a disturbing book, showing the reach of the
Rwandan state into its opponents' lives around the globe...Do Not
Disturb is a vital intervention."--Foreign Affairs
"Do Not Disturb is a remarkable catalog of lies the R.P.F. sold to
western apologists and the realities they covered up."--Current
Affairs
"Do Not Disturb is part murder mystery and part sweeping history of
an extended family tragedy spread over two countries, three wars,
four decades and a genocide. Along the way, Wrong asks hard
questions about the true nature of Kagame's rule and the claims
made for Rwanda's rebirth."--The Observer
"[A] Massively documented and footnoted book... her conclusions are
persuasive."--The Economist
"[The book] stands out as perhaps the most ambitious attempt yet to
tell the dark story of Rwanda and the region's deeply intertwined
tragedies for a general audience...There is a taut, cinematic
quality to Wrong's account."--The New York Times Book Review
"A brave and tremendous book... she has produced a classic."--The
Spectator UK
"A devastating book by Michela Wrong, comes something of a
reckoning -- or at the very least a reassessment. Do Not Disturb is
a damning j'accuse on many fronts. An extraordinarily brave piece
of reporting."--The Financial Times
"A unique insight into many hitherto little known dark sides of a
profoundly criminal regime. Based on first hand observations and
numerous interviews with key players, victims and witnesses, this
book is an indictment of those complicit in ensuring President
Kagame's impunity during the last quarter century."--FILIP
REYNTJENS, author of Political Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda
(Cambridge University Press).
"A withering assault on the murderous Rwandan regime of Paul
Kagame, and a melancholy love song to the lost dreams of the
nations of Africa's Great Lakes. Michela Wrong proves once again
that she is an intrepid and highly professional researcher of the
subject she knows best. It's a major accomplishment, very driven,
very impassioned." --JOHN LE CARRÉ, best-selling author of Tinker
Tailor Soldier Spy
"Devastating... comprehensive and compelling."--The Washington
Post
"Imagine a journalist of the 1930s brave enough to investigate one
of the mysterious assassinations of Stalin's opponents who had fled
abroad--and to tell that story to a world where too many people
were enamored of the Soviet leader. Michela Wrong has taken on a
similar job today: to use a killing to expose a man today seldom
recognized as a ruthless dictator. Her skills as a writer and
expert knowledge of Africa make this a chilling story."--ADAM
HOCHSCHILD, author of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed,
Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa
"In this extremely important and profoundly disturbing book,
Michela Wrong sets out all the miss-steps that were ignored, all
the flagrant human rights abuses that were overlooked and all the
criminality for which excuses were found, until the new horrors
that have been visited upon that country were perpetrated. Ms Wrong
is not suggesting that we become Afro-pessimists but telling us
that not only is the price of freedom eternal vigilance, but also
that we must, in the words of Amilcar Cabral, 'tell no lies, claim
no easy victories'"--Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Winner of the Nobel
Peace Prize
"In Wrong's panoramic cast of characters, the voices of those whose
lives were destroyed ring out the loudest...Gripping, stylish
journalism that proves the modern history of Rwanda is hardly
settled."--Kirkus Reviews
"Journalist Wrong (It's Our Turn to Eat) delivers a distressing and
deeply reported exposé of Rwandan president Paul Kagame and his
control over an increasingly authoritarian state...This expert
takedown packs a punch."--Publishers Weekly
"Meticulously researched, with substantial new material and
interviews."--The Guardian
"Michela Wrong lays out the context of her story with great
care...The story is compelling."--Democracy in Africa
"Michela Wrong takes her readers on an absorbing political journey,
in which Rwandan comrades-in-arms Paul Kagame and Patrick Karegeya
steadily mutate into lethal adversaries upon achieving power. The
ghosts of other historic mortal fallouts - Stalin and Trotsky,
Sankara and Compaore, Robespierre and Danton, Mugabe and Mujuru -
haunt this story, but more importantly, it draws our attention to
the significant structural problems created by ex-military leaders'
participation in the building of post-war democracy and peace."
--MILES TENDI, author of The Army and Politics in Zimbabwe: Mujuru,
the Liberation Fighter and Kingmaker
"Superb... an epic tale of blood, bitterness and betrayal... a
gripping tale."--Times UK
"The author paints a frightening picture of Rwanda as a police
state that reminds one of hallmarks of the Stalinist era, where
opponents to the regime are not disappeared because they are guilty
but whose disappearance is sufficient proof of their culpability.
Refreshingly free of jargon, the book breaks important new ground
in the literature on Rwanda, in a lively and suspenseful prose.
This is revisionist history at its best. I cannot recommend it too
highly."--RENÉ LAMARCHAND, Emeritus Professor, University of
Florida
"Wrong's book is an eloquent and entirely convincing plea for that
same glaze not to come over the world's eyes when uncomfortable
truths are told."--The Los Angeles Review of Books
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
