Panel on Spywork & John le Carré: 2018 National Book Festival

Kai Bird presents "The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames," David Ignatius presents "The Quantum Spy," Joseph Kanon presents "Defectors" and Adam Sisman presents "John le Carré: The Biography" in a panel discussion at the 2018 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Speaker Biography: Award-winning author and journalist Kai Bird is best known for his biographies of political figures. Recognized with fellowships from the Thomas J. Watson, Alicia Patterson Journalism and Guggenheim foundations, Bird also co-wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer." He has also written "The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames" (Broadway), in which he uncovers the legacy of a remarkable operative in the CIA who held influential and effective intelligence on the Middle East. Speaker Biography: David Ignatius is an associate editor for The Washington Post. Since 2003, he has been the author of a twice-weekly, globally distributed column on global politics, economics and international affairs. He has held important positions at the International Herald Tribune and The Wasll Street Journal, and has written for Time, Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs and The New York Times magazines. He is the author of 10 novels, including "Body of Lies" which was made into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Ridley Scott. His new novel, "The Quantum Spy" (Norton) is about the race between America and China to build a quantum computer. Speaker Biography: Joseph Kanon, best-known for his spy novels, was editor-in-chief, CEO and president of Houghton Mifflin and E.P. Dutton publishers. He published his first novel in 1997, when he was 51. "Los Alamos" was a best-seller and received the Edgar Award for best first novel. He has since written "The Prodigal Spy," "The Good German" (made into a film starring George Clooney) and "Istanbul Passage," among others. His new book is "Defectors" (Atria). Speaker Biography: Adam Sisman was born in London and attended the University of Sussex in history. Sisman's 1999 book, "Boswell's Presumptuous Task," about the making of Samuel Johnson's biography, garnered much commercial and critical success. It received the National Book Critics Circle Award. Sisman has worked on Mikhail Gorbachev's "Memoirs" and on John Roberts' "History of the World." His "John le Carré: The Biography" (HarperCollins), was shortlisted for the International PEN Prize for Biography. For transcript and more information, visit www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=84…

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