Oliver August
Oliver August is the former Europe editor of The Economist. He previously covered America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. He has been based in Baghdad, Beijing, Beirut, Damascus, Nairobi, New York and Singapore.
August started his career as a correspondent for The Times of London. He covered financial markets in America, Europe and Asia, and worked as a war correspondent in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. His writing on Germany won him the Anglo-German Foundation Journalism Prize in 1998.
August's first book, Along the Wall and Watchtowers (HarperCollins, 1999), chronicles a journey along the former Iron Curtain and examines the political, economic and social consequences of German reunification. His second book, Inside the Red Mansion (Houghton Mifflin & John Murray, 2007) describes the epic search for Lai Changxing, China's most wanted man,[1] and details the emergence of an entrepreneurial class in post-Communist China. The book was translated into eleven languages.
August was born in Bremerhaven and grew up in northern Germany. His father was a theatre director and his mother an architect. He has a bachelor's degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University and a master's degree in international relations from City University, London.
In 2012 August was named "journalist of the year" at the Diageo Africa Business Reporting Awards. In 1999 he received the Anglo-German Foundation Journalism Award.
August has appeared on the BBC, NPR, CNN and CNBC. He has contributed opinion articles to the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.
References
Books
- Along the Wall and Watchtowers, HarperCollins, 1999
- Inside the Red Mansion, Houghton Mifflin, 2007
External links
- oliveraugust.com
- Anglo-German Foundation site
- A short film about the making of the book Inside the Red Mansion
- Journalisted - Articles by Oliver August