Interviews August 22, 2013

Peter Hessler recently relocated to Cairo with his wife, journalist Leslie T. Chang, and their twin daughters. Their move Egypt came after a stint in southwestern Colorado, and before that, Hessler spent years based in and observing China. During his China period, Hessler produced books that met great success—River Town, Oracle Bones, and Country Driving—marking him as one of the US’s leading long-form journalists in the region. In 2011, he won a MacArthur “Genius” grant for his keen observation of “such rapidly changing societies as Reform Era China.” But Hessler had little desire to become a writer associated with