Author, David Finkel and Tom Hyland – converse – #Melbourne

Pulitzer-winning journalist and author of The Good Soldiers, David Finkel, in conversation with The Sunday Age’s Tom Hyland at Readings Hawthorn (Melbourne) on March 9 – presented by The Walkley Foundation.

Finkel followed the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers, as they put into action President George W. Bush’s “surge” strategy for the Iraq war. Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. In The Good Soldiers Finkel asks, what is the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? The book has been critically acclaimed as an unforgettable work of reportage, and an eternal tale – not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.

Leigh Sales described The Good Soldiers as “not only the best non fiction book I’ve read this year, but one of the best I have ever read.

“It was riveting, unputdownable journalism at its very finest. David Finkel, a Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post journalist, spent the best part of a year with a US army unit sent to Iraq at the very beginning of the surge. It makes no judgment on the merits of the surge as a policy; it simply tells the soldiers’ stories. A masterpiece.”

The Walkley Foundation is proud to support this discussion about reportage and the importance of great journalism.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
6.30pm
Readings Hawthorn
701 Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn, Victoria
Free, but please book your place
Bookings: 03 9819 1917 or email events@readings.com.au

About David Finkel:
David Finkel is the national enterprise editor of The Washington Post. He joined the Post in 1990 and has worked for the paper’s national, foreign, and magazine staffs. He has reported from Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe, and throughout the United States, and was part of the Post’s war coverage in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. Among Finkel’s journalism honours are a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2006 for a series of stories about U.S.-funded democracy efforts in Yemen. He has been a Pulitzer finalist three other times, for both explanatory reporting and feature writing.

About Tom Hyland
Tom Hyland is International Editor at The Sunday Age, where he reports on foreign affairs and defence issues. He’s been a journalist for the past 30 years and joined The Age in 1997. He co-ordinated The Age’s coverage of the war in Kosovo, the East Timor crisis, the September 11 attacks, the Afghanistan war, the Bali bombings and the Iraq war. He’s been on The Sunday Age since 2006, writing news, features and commentary. He has a particular interest in Afghanistan