Christopher Hitchens on Book Writing, Henry Kissinger, Celebrity Culture (4/5) (1997)

October 26, 1997 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.... Watch the full program: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/11/christopher-hitchens-on-political...

Henry Alfred Kissinger (born May 27, 1923) is a German-born American political scientist, diplomat, and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. After his term, his opinion was still sought out by many following presidents.

A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with the People's Republic of China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War. His role in the bombing of Cambodia and other American interventions abroad during this period remains controversial.

Kissinger is still a controversial figure today. He remains a regular participant in meetings of the annual invitation-only Bilderberg Group. He was honored as the first recipient of the Ewald von Kleist Award of the Munich Conference on Security Policy and currently serves as the chairman of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm.

Peter Balakian (born June 13, 1951) is a poet, writer and academic, the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of Humanities at Colgate University.

Peter Balakian is the author of five books of poems, including, most recently, June-tree: New and Selected Poems 1974-2000. His other books are Father Fisheye (1979), Sad Days of Light (1983), Reply From Wilderness Island (1988), Dyer's Thistle (1996), and several fine limited editions. His poems have appeared widely in American magazines and journals such as The Nation, The New Republic, Antaeus, Partisan Review, Poetry, Agni, and The Kenyon Review; and in anthologies such as New Directions in Prose and Poetry, The Morrow Anthology of Younger American Poets, Poetry's 75th Anniversary Issue (1987), The Wadsworth Anthology of Poetry and others.

Balakian's memoir Black Dog of Fate (1997) was winner of the PEN/Albrand Prize for memoir and a New York Times Notable Book. The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response (2003) received the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book and New York Times and national best seller.

Balakian is also the author of Theodore Roethke's Far Fields (Louisiana State University Press, 1989). His essays on poetry, culture, and art have appeared in many publications including Ararat, Art In America, American Poetry Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The American Quarterly, American Book Review, and Poetry.

Balakian was co-founder and co-editor (with Bruce Smith) of the poetry magazine Graham House Review, which was published from 1976 to 1996. He is the translator (with Nevart Yaghlian) of Bloody News From My Friend by the Armenian poet Siamanto (Wayne State University Press, 1996).

Balakian's prizes and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, 1999; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 2004; PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for Memoir, 1998; Raphael Lemkin Prize, 2005 (best book in English on the subject of human rights and genocide); New Jersey Council for the Humanities Book Award, 1998; Daniel Varoujan Prize, New England Poetry Club, 1986; Anahid Literary Prize, Columbia University Armenian Center, 1990. He is also a recipient of the Khorenatsi medal.

Four fine limited editions of Balakian's poems have been published by The Press of Appletree Alley (Lewisburg, PA). Translations and editions of Balakian's books appear in Armenian, Bulgarian, Dutch, German, Greek, Russian, and Turkish. Balakian has lectured widely in the United States and abroad and has appeared often on national television and radio.

Angela's Ashes is a memoir by the late Irish-American author Frank McCourt (1930--2009) and tells the story of his childhood in Brooklyn and Ireland. It was published in 1996 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.

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[TheShaitanjr]

exactly 14 years before he died