Carol J. Williams is a retired foreign correspondent who covered the historic upheaval that ended the Cold War in an award-winning 35-year career with Associated Press and Los Angeles Times. She lived through the USSR's brief era of hope for reform and the tragic consequences of its failure. She followed Eastern Europe's euphoric rebellions that toppled Communist tyrants from Berlin to Bucharest. In Yugoslavia, she documented the rise of ethnic and religious nationalism fanned by corrupt leaders who pushed their peoples into devastating wars. Her dispatches from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine traced those conflicts to unresolved ideological disputes from their days of imperial oppression. Williams is a graduate of the University of Washington and holds a journalist law certificate from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. She lives with her husband Ken Olsen, a retired editor, in Silverdale, WA.
Request Academic Copy
Please copy the ISBN for submitting review copy form
Description
"This fast-paced novel about an idealistic young journalist on her first foreign posting to the USSR transports us back to the waning days of Reagan's 'Evil Empire,' reminds us of the high stakes of the nuclear standoff during the Cold War, and introduces us to the many communities (musicians, "refuseniks," even Soviet bureaucrats) who quietly undercut the regime. As her heroine navigates this complex environment, Carol Williams skillfully paints the big picture for us: the specter of Soviet oppression, the Chernobyl disaster, the Afghan invasion, and the hope we felt when the Soviet Union collapsed. A great read by this breakout author." - US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch (ret), veteran diplomat in former Soviet states and author of Lessons from the Edge.