Blaine Harden is the author of Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile Continent; A River Lost: The Life and Death of the Columbia; and Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West. Africa won a PEN American Center citation for first book of nonfiction. Escape from Camp 14 was both a New York Times and an international bestseller published in twenty-seven languages. Harden formerly served as The Washington Post’s bureau chief in East Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. He lives in Seattle.