Elaine Sciolino
"Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran"
Wednesday, October 18 / 5 P.M. / FREE
UCen Corwin Pavilion
Book Review
In her new book “Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran"
(Free Press, September, 2000), Elaine Sciolino reveals the human side of Iran—a
land of striking contradictions and wondrous surprises. Going beyond the headlines,
she offers an inside view of the daring experiments in Islam and democracy
she witnessed first hand within various strata of Iranian society—the press,
cinema, beauty salons, pos restaurants, and homes. And in the process, she
shatters entrenched perceptions of Iranian life itself, discovering, for example,
popular films that depict divorce and suicide—two taboos of Islamic faith—and
meeting women who do not only sport red lipstick and gold bangles among friends,
but wear Chanel beneath their chadors. A senior writer in the Washington bureau
of The New York Times, Sciolino began her journalism career as a foreign correspondent
for Newsweek and is the author of The Outlaw State: Saddam Hussein’s Quest
for Power and the Gulf Crisis.
About the Author
Elaine Sciolino is a senior writer in
the Washington bureau of the New York Times with responsibility for profiles
and special projects. From November 1992 to early 1996, she was the chief
diplomatic correspondent--the first woman to hold that post at the newspaper.
She covered the intelligence beat in 1991-92 and served as a diplomatic correspondent
in 1987-91. In 1985-87, she was bureau chief at the United Nations after joining
the newspaper in June 1984 as a general assignment reporter. In 1972-84, Sciolino
worked in a variety of posts for Newsweek, most notably as a foreign correspondent
in Paris in 1978-80, Rome bureau chief in 1980-82, and roving international
correspondent based in New York in 1983-84. In those years, she covered the
Iranian Revolution, the hostage crisis in Iran, the Iran-Iraq War, the invasion
of Grenada, and the U.S. Marines in Lebanon. In 1982-83, Sciolino was the
first woman to become the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations. She received the Overseas Press Club citation for magazine
reporting abroad in 1983 and shared in the National Headliners Award for outstanding
coverage of a major news event by a magazine in 1981. Sciolino's book, The
Outlaw State: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Power and the Gulf Crisis, published
by John Wiley & Sons in 1991, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. She
received a master's degree in history from New York University in 1971 and
holds honorary doctoral degrees from Syracuse University, Canisius College,
and Dowling College.
This event is part of the "Global Peace, Security,
and Human Rights" lecture series being sponsored by the UC Institute for Global
Conflict and Cooperation, UCSB Arts & Lectures, Global and International Studies
Program, Global Peace and Security Program and Interdisciplinary Humanities
Center. It is being put on in partnership with the Santa Barbara Committee
on Foreign Relations, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, PAX 2100, International
Studies Association at Santa Barbara City College, and the International Studies
Program at Ventura College.
Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, copies of “Persian Mirrors:
The Elusive Face of Iran" will be available for
purchase and signing at the event.
