Mil­ton Viorst holds degrees from Rut­gers, Har­vard, Colum­bia, and Lyon in France. After two years in the Air Force, he worked at The Bergen Record, the Wash­ing­ton Post, and the New York Post before becom­ing a free-lance writer. He has cov­ered the Mid­dle East for The New York­er and for­eign press, and has pub­lished twelve books, half of which are on the Mid­dle East.