Best nonfiction book on international affairs
AWARD YEAR: 2002
AWARD NAME: The Cornelius Ryan Award 2002
RECIPIENT: John Laurence
AFFILIATION: PublicAffairs
HONORED WORK: “The Cat from Hué: A Vietnam War Story”
The Vietnam conflict still casts its shadow over the nation. John Laurence, widely judged by his colleagues to be the best television correspondent of that era, explores those shadows in this expansive, richly anecdotal and troubling memoir of the years he spent in country. The shell-shattered ruins of Hué, the terror of a lieutenant colonel in an outpost under NVN fire, a ghostly conversation with the grunts who picked up the bodies — all these cinematic moments come alive through Laurence’s rich prose. Along the way he details the true cost of war to Vietnam, America, and the men and women who got the story.
Citation for Excellence:
Mary Anne Weaver
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
“Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan”