The journalist and author Lynda Schuster discusses her memoir Dirty Wars and Polished Silver: The Life and Times of A War Correspondent Turned Ambassatrix (Melville House, 2017), and more, with Joseph Planta.

Dirty Wars and Polished Silver: The Life and Times of A War Correspondent Turned Ambassatrix by Lynda Schuster (Melville House, 2017). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Dirty Wars and Polished Silver

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

One of the more fascinating books of the season is the memoir from Lynda Schuster. The veteran reporter talks about life growing up in 1970s Detroit and wanting to see the wider world. She does. She becomes a foreign correspondent and is soon in the hots spots of the late 1970s and 1980s, the Middle East, and Central America. She’s dodging rocket fire, and covering a financial crisis in Mexico. Ten months after marrying the journalist Dial Torgenson, she is widowed. She continues working as a journalist and soon the travel wears on her, and as she marries for a second time to the diplomat Dennis Jett, she’s soon on the ambassadorial circuit playing hostess as she and her husband represent the United States in a number of postings. And that life isn’t without danger and adventure as you’ll soon hear. The book is called Dirty Wars and Polished Silver: The Life and Times of A War Correspondent Turned Ambassatrix. It’s a gripping book. Lynda Schuster was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. She was the Wall Street Journal’s Mexico bureau chief, and she has written extensively on the trials of Argentina’s “Dirty War,” and the transition of Brazil from a military government to democracy. She accompanied her husband to ambassadorial postings in Mozambique and Peru. Her previous book was 2004’s A Burning Hunger: One Family’s Struggle Against Apartheid. This new book is published by Melville House. The website for more is at www.lyndaschuster.com. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Lynda Schuster; Ms. Schuster, good morning.

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