Waiting for the Monsoon
by Rod Nordland
By the New York Times’s legendary war correspondent, written while battling terminal brain cancer: a life-affirming memoir of high adventure, deep wisdom, and finding true happiness amid the unlikeliest circumstances
“This is, by far, the most enlightening and inspiring book on facing death—and on discovering the beauty of life. ...One of the most intrepid and talented war correspondents of the past four decades, Rod Nordland has written a love letter to his second chance at life. ... An extraordinary tale of the power of the mind to survive—in war and in the face of the prognosis of one’s own death.” — Lynsey Addario, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, Macarthur Fellowship recipient, and New York Times bestselling author of It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War
"An unforgettable, moving book by an intrepid foreign correspondent for The New York Times. Though Nordland spent a career witnessing death on the battlefield, it is his own experience with a deadly illness that teaches him how to live with gratitude rather than hubris. It is a deeply personal story that will help readers recognize the urgency of repairing their most important relationships and what really matters in life."
— Jill Abramson, former executive editor of The New York Times and author of Merchants of Truth
"Powerful...Waiting for the Monsoon shows the life of a foreign correspondent to be both as vital and seductive as ever.” — Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down
"As one of the most courageous foreign correspondents of his generation, Rod Nordland emerged alive from myriad battlegrounds with many memorable stories to tell. More often than not, his stories have been a reaffirmation of the essential humanity of people encountered around the world in situations of war and loss. Waiting for the Monsoon is his rivetingly-told account of that life, and of his current final battle to survive a devastating brain tumor. This book is no chronicle of a death foretold, however, but rather the celebration of an extremely well-lived life, and, also, of the enduring power of love." — Jon Lee Anderson, New Yorker staff writer and author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
"In this complex, layered, and emotional memoir, Rod Nordland, battling terminal brain cancer, takes us from an abusive and impoverished childhood in the USA through four decades of war reporting in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. After one of the most remarkable careers in journalism, this is the most extraordinary story this legendary foreign correspondent has ever told.” — Gary Knight, Co-founder, VII Photo Agency; CEO, The VII Foundation
“A moving memoir of a life bravely lived.”
— The Spectator
The Lovers
by Rod Nordland
Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet, the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing
A riveting, real-life equivalent of The Kite Runner—an astonishingly powerful and profoundly moving story of a young couple willing to risk everything for love that puts a human face on the ongoing debate about women’s rights in the Muslim world.
Zakia and Ali were from different tribes, but they grew up on neighboring farms in the hinterlands of Afghanistan. By the time they were young teenagers, Zakia, strikingly beautiful and fiercely opinionated, and Ali, shy and tender, had fallen in love. Defying their families, sectarian differences, cultural conventions, and Afghan civil and Islamic law, they ran away together only to live under constant threat from Zakia’s large and vengeful family, who have vowed to kill her to restore the family’s honor. They are still in hiding.
Despite a decade of American good intentions, women in Afghanistan are still subjected to some of the worst human rights violations in the world. Rod Nordland, then the Kabul bureau chief of the New York Times, had watched these abuses unfold for years when he came upon Zakia and Ali, and has not only chronicled their plight, but has also shepherded them from danger.
The Lovers will do for women’s rights generally what Malala’s story did for women’s education. It is an astonishing story about self-determination and the meaning of love that illustrates, as no policy book could, the limits of Western influence on fundamentalist Islamic culture and, at the same time, the need for change.
