Masha Hamilton is the author of four acclaimed novels, most recently 31 Hours, which The Washington Post called one of the best novels of 2009, and independent bookstores named an Indie Next choice. She also founded two world literacy projects, the Camel Book Drive and the Afghan Women's Writing Project.
She is the winner of the 2010 Women's National Book Association award, presented "to a living American woman who derives part or all of her income from books and allied arts, and who has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation."
She began her career as a full-time journalist, working in Maine, Indiana, and New York City before being sent by the Associated Press to the Middle East where she was news editor for five years, including the period of the first intefadeh. She then moved to Moscow where she worked for five years during the collapse of Communism, reporting for the Los Angeles Times and NBC-Mutual Radio and writing a monthly column, "Postcards from Moscow." She also reported from Kenya in 2006, and from Afghanistan in 2004 and 2008.
A Brown University graduate, Hamilton has been awarded fiction fellowships from Yaddo, Blue Mountain Center, Squaw Valley Community of Writers and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She has taught for Gotham Writers Workshop and the 92nd Street Y in New York City and at a number of writers' workshops around the country. She has also taught in Afghanistan at Kabul University.
Masha Hamilton is the Director of Communications and Public
Diplomacy for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Praise for THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US by Masha Hamilton A LIBRARY
JOURNAL BOOK OF THE YEAR, 2004 "A great story....Will get you
thinking and break your heart."--iVillage.com "Emotionally
ferocious . . . an affecting, viscerally charged work that offers
no easy moral answers. A foreign correspondent's façade of
emotional invincibility is shattered by the death of a colleague in
journalist Hamilton's sharply etched, emotionally ferocious second
novel (after Staircase of a Thousand Steps).--Publisher's Weekly,
STARRED review "The plotting is flawless. The pacing is just right
... Hamilton is an accomplished stylist
Hamilton knows the geographic beauty and the unending blood feuds
of the Middle East. She knows it as a journalist (for The
Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times), she knows it as a
resident - the sights, sounds, smells of life and death seem to
fill her every pore."--San Francisco Chronicle "Powerful portrayal
of religious warfare . . . The Distance Between Us dramatizes
difficult issues about what draws reporters - and readers - to
stories of violence. What does it cost to become the kind of person
who "can step over bloody ground for a quote"?"--The Christian
Science Monitor "Compelling tale of reprisal and endurance with a
rich cast of characters. Caddie Blair is a war correspondent in the
Middle East whose life is tragically changed in a single
second."
--Library Journal, STARRED review "Hamilton not only captures the
conflicted feelings of journalists but also the conflicted feelings
of those living in the middle of the violence. All sides of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict are presented fairly. Punchy dialogue
and prose style turn this introspective look at violence and loss
into a page-turner."
--Booklist "In The Distance Between Us, Masha Hamilton's searing
novel set amid the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Caddie is a
journalist drawn to explosive violence like a moth to a
flamethrower. She keeps getting singed from the heat, but it
cauterizes her flayed emotions."--San Diego Union-Tribune
"Hamilton's novel is a compelling look at the emotional challenges
and psychological extremes of covering a war with a shifting front
line, as well as a convincing story of love and self-discovery . .
. A former war correspondent in the Middle East and Moscow,
Hamilton writes with the passion of someone who has witnessed
firsthand the religious and cultural complexities of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In an era when the richness of the
Middle East is so often diluted by our American sensibilities, The
Distance Between Us is not only compelling and fast-paced, but
timely and enlightening as well."
--Rocky Mountain News "I approached this novel, written by a
veteran Middle East reporter and set in Israel during the intifada,
with some trepidation, expecting yet another critique of Israel's
moral stance. But Masha Hamilton's The Distance Between Us does not
take sides. Her subject is grief and the desire for revenge, as
experienced by a journalist whose colleague is killed."--Jerusalem
Post "Extremely well written and compelling....THE DISTANCE BETWEEN
US drops us right into the battle zone and forces us to look
straight at the inhumanity and simultaneously the hidden personal
side..."
--The Bloomsbury Review "Hamilton, who has worked as a foreign
correspondent in the Middle East, Russia and Afghanistan, writes
convincingly about the emotional challenges of reporting from a
place rife with violence. Her terse, no-nonsense prose propels the
novel like a thriller, but the undercurrent of moral tension gives
it weight."--The Cleveland Plain Dealer Praise for THE CAMEL
BOOKMOBILE by Masha Hamilton "Hamilton's portrayal of nomadic
culture is lovingly and colorfully told. It's a painterly glimpse
into a world that few Westerners will ever see."--USA Today "Rich
and evocative prose that skillfully exposes the stark realities of
poverty and charity in today's Africa. Highly recommended for any
fiction collection."
--Library Journal, STARRED review "A poignant, ennobling, and
buoyant tale of risks and rewards, surrender and sacrifice."
--Booklist, STARRED review "Vibrates with the life and landscape of
Africa...peopled with characters readers can't help but care about
deeply."--BookPage "Hamilton makes us see how much is really at
stake in a poverty-stricken place where every possession carries
the weight of significance. A larger conflict wouldn't do justice
to the notion of honor as lived by these people; it extends all the
way down to the smallest stack of books."--New York Times "This
captivating story about a determined chick with a big heart will
touch you deeply."
--Cosmo Magazine Praise for 31 HOURS by Masha Hamilton A WASHINGTON
POST BEST MYSTERY/THRILLER OF 2009 "Hamilton has used both her
considerable empathy as a writer and her experience in the Middle
East to create an intimate portrait of 21-year-old Jonas Meitzner.
It's not easy to like him for what he intends to do, much less
admire him, but Hamilton makes us aware of his
humanity...Sensitive, lonely and full of the anger and doubt many
young people feel, Jonas seems in Hamilton's hands not a stranger,
not an impenetrable figure of dread whose behavior is beyond our
understanding, but the ordinary, fragile child of ordinary, fragile
people. You don't exactly want to look at the story of what happens
to Jonas, but Hamilton has made it very hard to tear your gaze
away."--The Washington Post "Riveting.... a potent psychological
analysis on the true meaning of loyalty -- to friends, family
members and country -- and what any of us, given the chance, would
to do to uphold it."--The Minneapolis Star-Tribune "Highly
readable...keeps us engaged most with the desire to answer the
standard thriller question: Can the killer be stopped?...Hamilton
arrays her characters smartly, then points them toward the
subway...Women, in particular, will inhale this book."--Cleveland
Plain Dealer "One of the best novels I've read this year."--Carol
Fitzgerald, founder, BookReporter.com "How much can we ever know
the ones we truly love? So asks Masha Hamilton in her riveting new
novel, 31 HOURS. It kept me up all night, and left me in
tears."
--Amanda Eyre Ward, author of Sleep Toward Heaven, Love Stories In
This Town "You don't just read this gut-wrenching book; you become
part of it in a deep, primal way. Hamilton's story is so real and
so raw, it takes over your thoughts and feelings and never lets go.
We need to start a global book club and make this its first
selection."
--Lois Alter Mark, StyleSubstanceSoul.com "Masha Hamilton uncovers
the complex humanity behind the horror of terrorism. Read it for
the exquisite craft, but also for the entry into a world that's
often splashed in the headlines, but seldom so brilliantly
revealed."--Caroline Leavitt, author of Girls in Trouble and Coming
Back to Me "Equal parts thriller and poetry, Masha Hamilton's 31
Hours had me turning pages late into the night and thinking about
its startling conclusion long after I'd read the last page. In
compelling readers to reconsider how we think about terrorism, this
beautiful novel will provoke understanding, and perhaps even
inspire us toward much-needed change."--Meg Waite Clayton, author
of The Wednesday Sisters
In this new novel by Hamilton (31 Hours), who currently works at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and founded the Afghan Women's Writing Project, a seemingly disconnected series of narratives cohere around the theme of America's experience in Afghanistan. When a refugee aid worker named Todd is kidnapped for ransom, his wife and daughter back home in Brooklyn struggle with trust-in the FBI and in each other. Stela, a Russian immigrant who owns a bookstore in Cleveland, has lost one son in Afghanistan; her other son, now a Brooklyn street artist, refuses to communicate with her. Mandy, a nurse, travels to Afghanistan ostensibly to bring medical supplies but in fact to find a connection with her embittered son, a veteran who is a double amputee. Amin, formerly an aide to a deposed Afghani president (whose fictionalized letters from prison lend the novel its historical perspective), is determined to negotiate Todd's release. VERDICT Hamilton's descriptions are vivid, especially when portraying the tension and uncertainty that families of political prisoners endure. Fans of topical fiction will appreciate this knowledgeable and nuanced view of the Afghan war.-Reba Leiding, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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