Join us for an evening reading and wine reception in MEI's garden featuring Kim Ghattas, author of The Secretary (Times Books/Holt 2013). As the BBC's State Department correspondent since 2008, Ghattas had unparalleled access to Secretary Clinton and her entourage, and she weaves a fast-paced, gripping account of life on the road with Clinton in The Secretary. Ghattas draws on extensive interviews with Clinton, administration officials, and players in Washington as well as overseas, to paint an intimate and candid portrait of one of the most powerful global politicians. Populated with a cast of real-life characters, The Secretary tells the story of Clinton's transformation from popular but polarizing politician to America's envoy to the world in compelling detail and with all the tension of high stakes diplomacy. Viewed through Ghattas's vantage point as a half-Dutch, half-Lebanese citizen who grew up in the crossfire of the Lebanese civil war, The Secretary is also the author's own journey as she seeks to answer the questions that haunted her childhood. How powerful is America really? And, if it is in decline, who or what will replace it and what will it mean for America and the world? Kim Ghattas will give a reading from The Secretary and will be on hand to sign books afterwards. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
Bio:
Kim Ghattas has been the BBC's State Department Radio and TV correspondent since 2008, and travels regularly with the secretary of state. She was previously a Middle East correspondent for the BBC and the Financial Times, based in Beirut. Ghattas was part of an Emmy Award-winning BBC team covering the Lebanon-Israel conflict of 2006. Her work has also been published in TIME magazine, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Washington Post, and she appears regularly on NPR and American television shows as a commentator.