Robin Wright
Robin Wright has been a contributing writer to The New Yorker since 1988. Her first piece on Iran won the National Magazine Award for best reporting. A former correspondent for the Washington Post, CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, and the Sunday Times of London, she has reported from more than a hundred and forty countries. She is also a distinguished fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She has been a fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as well as at Yale, Duke, Dartmouth, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Wright received the U.N. Correspondents Association Gold Medal for international coverage, and the Overseas Press Club Award for the “best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and initiative,” for her coverage of African wars. The American Academy of Diplomacy named her journalist of the year for “distinguished reporting and analysis of international affairs.” She also won the National Press Club Award for diplomatic reporting and has been the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation grant.
Wright is the author of several books, including “The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran,” “Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam,” and “Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East,” which was selected by the New York Times and the Washington Post as one of the most notable books of 2008. Her book, “Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World,” was selected as the best book on international affairs by the Overseas Press Club.
All Work
- Our Columnists
Trump’s Stunt with the Taliban Was Not About Negotiating Peace
In a furious series of tweets, the President both revealed and cancelled a summit with the militant group, which was to have taken place at Camp David.
September 9, 2019
- Daily Comment
Robert Mugabe and the Fate of Democracy in Africa
The former President of Zimbabwe, who died on Friday, epitomized the difficulties of trying to revive the democratic dream after long-running despots are ousted.
September 8, 2019
- Our Columnists
Trump’s Weird Whoppers at the G-7 Summit
The President has proved irascibly intransigent on the world stage. This time, he spouted fabulist views on China, Russia, North Korea, and the environment.
August 27, 2019
- Our Columnists
Why Do Americans Feel That There’s No One to Help Us?
The corrosion of public faith in leadership and institutions now consumes Americans of both parties. And it seems to be getting worse.
August 7, 2019
- News Desk
Iran’s Foreign Minister Was Invited to Meet Trump in the Oval Office
The invitation was extended just weeks before the Administration placed sanctions on Mohammad Javad Zarif for functioning “as a propaganda minister, not a foreign minister.”
August 2, 2019
- Our Columnists
The Rhetoric and Reality of Donald Trump’s Racism
As Jamestown, Virginia, marks four hundred years since the beginning of both slavery and democracy in America, the state legislature’s Black Caucus boycotted the President’s appearance.
July 31, 2019
- Our Columnists
Iran’s Eye-for-an-Eye Strategy in the Gulf
The latest escalation between the United States and Iran is of a pattern with many of the Islamic Republic’s confrontations with regional and international adversaries since the 1979 revolution.
July 19, 2019
- Our Columnists
Neil Armstrong, Over the Moon Among the Pandas
In June, 2001, I took Neil Armstrong and his wife to the National Zoo. You’d have thought he had never done anything so interesting in his life.
July 16, 2019
- Our Columnists
The Unbelievable Hypocrisy of Trump’s New “Unalienable Rights” Panel
The world reacted with disbelief when the Trump Administration announced it was creating a new commission to explore “unalienable rights” in U.S. foreign policy.
July 9, 2019
- Our Columnists
Trump’s Curious Rendezvous with Kim Jong Un at the D.M.Z.
During the encounter, Kim agreed to do only what he had already promised last year: allow more talks between North Korean and American teams.
June 30, 2019
