FPRI
Kanan Makiya* has been described as the Arab world’s “Solzhenitsyn” for courageously bearing witness to unspeakable cruelty, notes the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His new critically acclaimed novel, The Rope, is at once a murder mystery and a poignant story of a militia man, his closest friends, and family – all working at cross purposes after the invasion of Iraq. The book illuminates what went wrong in Iraq in a way that nonfiction is ill-equipped to do.
In 1989, his book Republic of Fear was published under a pseudonym to protect his family, for it brought to light the bizarre character of the Saddam regime. It became a bestseller after the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990. His book Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World, published under his own name in 1993, was awarded the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book on international relations in English in 1993. The book denounced those in the Middle East who failed to speak out loud the unpalatable truths about widespread repression.
FPRI’s 2016 Annual Dinner
Chaired by Marina Kats, Ronald J. Naples, Hon. Dov S. Zakheim
Thursday, November 17, 2016
6:00 Reception • 7:00 Dinner • 8:15 Program • 9:15 Adjournment
Featuring the Presentation of the 12th Annual
Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Service to
Kanan Makiya Author of Republic of Fear Cruelty and Silence The Rope
In a conversation with Philadelphia Inquirer’s Award-Winning Columnist, Trudy Rubin.
In his address, Makiya will also explore what went wrong in the Arab Spring and what the lessons are for all of us today. Guests at the dinner will receive a complimentary copy of the book. RSVP
*A contributor to the National Endowment for Democracy’s Journal of Democracy.
