“An Evening with Peter Finn,” featuring the national security editor of The Washington Post in conversation with Warren Wilson College President Steve Solnick, will be April 2 at 7 p.m. at the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design, 67 Broadway in Asheville.
Free and open to the public, the event continues Warren Wilson’s 2014-15 Global Impact Forum, a series devoted to exploring topics of national and international policy and politics. Because seating is limited, guests are advised to arrive early. The evening is sponsored by Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, The Himan Group; and by Roberts & Stevens, P.A., Attorneys at Law.
Solnick and Finn will discuss terrorism, counter-terrorism, the National Security Agency, Edward Snowden and global politics, as well as the story of Cold War intrigue told in Finn’s book “The Zhivago Affair.”
“Peter Finn has a remarkable range of international reporting experience,” Solnick said, “and we are excited that he will be sharing his insight at the April 2 event. It should be a memorable evening.”
Finn is co-author of "The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA and the Battle over a Forbidden Book," published by Pantheon in 2014. The New York Review of Books describes it as "a fascinating book that is thoroughly researched, extraordinarily accurate in its factual details, judicious in its judgments, and destined to remain the definitive work on the subject for a very long time to come." The book is a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle award for General Nonfiction.
After joining the Post in 1995 from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Finn first worked in Virginia for the Metro section. Beginning in 1998, Finn spent 10 years overseas for the paper as the bureau chief in its Warsaw, Berlin and Moscow bureaus. He reported on the 1999 war in Kosovo and its aftermath.
Finn covered terrorism for the Post after the Sept. 11 attacks, traveling extensively in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and North Africa. He was embedded with U.S. Special Forces during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In all, Finn has reported from more than 60 countries for the Post. His last assignment overseas was the Russian-Georgian war.
In Washington, Finn became a national security correspondent covering counter-terrorism and U.S. detention operations, including those at Guantanamo Bay, which he has visited multiple times to report on military commission trials. He was appointed national security editor in 2013, and was part of a team of editors that oversaw the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories based on the documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
Finn has twice been a Pulitzer Prize finalist for international reporting, as part of Post teams for coverage of the wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan. His reporting on the war in Kosovo won the Robert F. Kennedy Grand Prize and International Print awards. He also has won the German Marshall Fund journalism prize for coverage of al-Qaeda in Europe, among other awards for his work.
For more information about the April 2 event, call WWC community relations director Ellen Querin at 828-771-2092.
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