Shirley Christian

Last updated

Shirley Christian is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, known for reporting on the Central American crisis during the 1970s and 1980s. [1] Christian has worked as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times , Miami Herald , and Associated Press . [2] Her book on the Nicaraguan Revolution, according to the Wall Street Journal, “may stand as the definitive account of the fall of Anastasio Somoza and the rise of the Sandinistas.” [3]

Contents

She is also the author of the 2004 history Before Lewis and Clark: The Story of the Chouteaus, the French Dynasty That Ruled America's Frontier. [4]

Early life and career

Christian graduated from Pittsburg State University in 1960 with a B.A. in language and literature, and from Ohio State University in 1966 with a M.A. in international journalism. [5] She was later selected as a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University. [6]

In 1968, she joined the Associated Press [7] and faced discrimination because of her gender. She writes: “When I arrived in New York at the end of 1968… the foreign editor declared that a woman would go abroad over his dead or retired body. During the coming five years I sat by as my male contemporaries, after a year or two on one of the desks, were dispatched into the wide world.” [8] In 1973, she joined a class action discrimination complaint against the AP. [9] At the time, the news staff was 7% women. [10]

She went on to work as the AP’s United Nations correspondent and as an editor at its Foreign and World Desk before deciding to concentrate her reporting on Latin America. [11] She then became the AP bureau chief for Chile and Bolivia.

1981 Pulitzer Prize

In 1980, Christian joined the Latin America Bureau for the Miami Herald and began reporting on the Central American crisis, the political turmoil that was sweeping across Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. She was known for reporting on the human aspect of the conflict. [12]

She won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting “for her dispatches from Central America.” The jury stated, “She displays a superb eye for detail, and combines great writing skill with her obvious expertise on the complex and bewildering problems that bedevil the region.” [13]

She lived in Latin America for 20 years, rising to become the New York Times Bureau Chief for Argentina. [14]

Books

Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family In 1985, she published Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family, an account of the overthrow of Nicaragua’s dictatorship by the left-wing Sandinistas and the rise of the Contra rebel groups who opposed the new leadership. [15]

The book received mixed reviews. The Foreign Affairs review stated, “This is the best analysis we yet possess of the fall of the Somoza regime and the rise of the Sandinistas.” [16] Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Christian's fundamental hostility to the Sandinistas mars her story" and "it fails as a constructive, enlightening study of the problems of Nicaragua." [17] The New York Times reviewer wrote: “After so much ideological fever, so many boring meetings and flat ephemeral pamphlets, it is marvelous to find a book that spends most of its considerable length just telling us what actually happened.” [18]

Before Lewis and Clark: The Story of the Chouteaus, the French Dynasty That Ruled America's Frontier

Christian’s 2004 book, Before Lewis and Clark, tells the story of the American West before the famous expedition that begins many of the region’s histories. She focuses particularly on the Chouteau family—“the dynasty that guarded the gates to the West for three generations.” [19] Before Lewis and Clark puts particular emphasis on the people often neglected in such histories: the Chouteau women, and the native people who the family was interacting with on the frontier. [20]

Publishers Weekly wrote: “Christian's lively portrait of the Chouteaus opens a window on a little-known portion of early American history.” [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandinista National Liberation Front</span> Nicaraguan socialist political party founded in 1961

The Sandinista National Liberation Front is a left-wing political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto César Sandino, who led the Nicaraguan resistance against the United States occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anastasio Somoza Debayle</span> President of Nicaragua (1967–72, 1974–79)

Anastasio "Tacho" Somoza Debayle was the President of Nicaragua from 1 May 1967 to 1 May 1972 and from 1 December 1974 to 17 July 1979. As head of the National Guard, he was de facto ruler of the country between 1972 and 1974, even during the period when he was not the de jure ruler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linda Greenhouse</span> American legal journalist

Linda Joyce Greenhouse is an American legal journalist who is the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who has covered the United States Supreme Court for nearly three decades for The New York Times. Since 2017, she is the president of the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Senate.

Loretta Tofani is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Vennochi</span> American newspaper columnist

Joan Elizabeth Vennochi is an American newspaper columnist. She specializes in local and national politics at The Boston Globe. With Stephen A. Kurkjian, Alexander B. Hawes Jr., Nils Bruzelius, and Robert M. Porterfield she won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Local Investigative Specialized Reporting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tina Rosenberg</span> American journalist

Tina Rosenberg is an American journalist and the author of three books. For one of them, The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism (1995), she won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Auguste Pierre Chouteau was a member of the Chouteau fur-trading family who established trading posts in what is now the U.S. state of Oklahoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Constance McLaughlin Green</span> American historian

Constance McLaughlin Winsor Green was an American historian. She who won the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for History for Washington, Village and Capital, 1800–1878 (1962).

Robert S. Capers is an American journalist.

Elliot G. Jaspin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist.

Frank Lewis Peters Jr. was an American journalist. He won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

Louis Stark was an American journalist. He spent most of his career working as an economic reporter for The New York Times. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1942.

Gene Swann Graham was an American journalist and educator who was associated for many years with the Nashville Tennessean and with the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He was a co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1962.

Robert Skinner Boyd was an American journalist who spent most of his career working for the Knight Newspaper Group, spending two decades as the group's Washington bureau chief. He and Clark Hoyt won a Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for uncovering the fact that Senator Thomas Eagleton, George McGovern's choice for vice president, had had severe psychiatric problems and undergone three shock treatments. Instead of publishing their scoop, they disclosed their findings to McGovern's top advisor, and Eagleton withdrew as the Democratic nominee.

Clarence J. Williams is an American photojournalist who worked for the Los Angeles Times from 1996 to 2003. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for feature photography.

Caro Crawford Brown was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist.

Mary Pat Flaherty is an American journalist who specializes in investigative and long-range stories. She has won numerous national awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Specialized Reporting. Formerly of the Pittsburgh Press, she has worked for the Washington Post since 1993.

Sheryl Teresa James is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 1991 for a series she wrote in the St. Petersburg Times about a mother who deserted her baby. Her reporting has also been in the Detroit Free Press, the Greensboro News and Record, and City Magazine in Lansing, Michigan.

Jane Elizabeth Healy is an American journalist. She was the recipient of the Orlando Sentinel's first Pulitzer Prize.

Bette Swenson Orsini was an American journalist for the St. Petersburg Times. In 1980, she won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting with Charles Stafford for an investigation of the Church of Scientology.

References

  1. ↑ Brennan, Elizabeth A.; Clarage, Elizabeth C. (1999). Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN   9781573561112.
  2. ↑ "Shirley Christian | Authors | Macmillan". US Macmillan. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  3. ↑ "Works - Shirley Christian". www.shirleychristian.com. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  4. ↑ "Before Lewis and Clark | Shirley Christian | Macmillan". US Macmillan. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  5. ↑ "Home - Shirley Christian". www.shirleychristian.com. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  6. ↑ "Good Girls Don't". Nieman Reports. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  7. ↑ Fischer, Heinz-Dietrich (2018-02-23). Acclaimed Press Coverage of Latin American Countries: Pulitzer Prize Winning Articles, Cartoons and Photos. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN   9783643909886.
  8. ↑ "Good Girls Don't". Nieman Reports. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  9. ↑ "Good Girls Don't". Nieman Reports. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  10. ↑ "Good Girls Don't". Nieman Reports. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  11. ↑ Fischer, Heinz-Dietrich (2018-02-23). Acclaimed Press Coverage of Latin American Countries: Pulitzer Prize Winning Articles, Cartoons and Photos. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN   9783643909886.
  12. ↑ Brennan, Elizabeth A.; Clarage, Elizabeth C. (1999). Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN   9781573561112.
  13. ↑ Fischer, Heinz-Dietrich (2018-02-23). Acclaimed Press Coverage of Latin American Countries: Pulitzer Prize Winning Articles, Cartoons and Photos. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN   9783643909886.
  14. ↑ Brennan, Elizabeth A.; Clarage, Elizabeth C. (1999). Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN   9781573561112.
  15. ↑ Ash, Timothy Garton (1985-07-28). "Report on a Revolution". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  16. ↑ "Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family". Foreign Affairs: America and the World. No. Fall 1985. 2009-01-28. ISSN   0015-7120 . Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  17. ↑ "Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2021-10-27.
  18. ↑ Ash, Timothy Garton (1985-07-28). "Report on a Revolution". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  19. ↑ "Before Lewis and Clark: The Story of the Chouteaus, the French Dynasty that Ruled America's Frontier - Shirley Christian". www.shirleychristian.com. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  20. ↑ Rice, C. David (Spring 2005). "Review of Before Lewis and Clark: The Story of the Chouteaus, the French Dynasty That Ruled America's Frontier By Shirley Christian". Great Plains Quarterly: 124–125.
  21. ↑ "Nonfiction Book Review: BEFORE LEWIS AND CLARK: The Story of the Chouteaus, the French Dynasty That Ruled America's Frontier by Shirley Christian, Author . Farrar, Straus & Giroux $25 (528p) ISBN 978-0-374-11005-5". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.