is a Paris-based writer, journalist and critic, a contributing writer for The Atlantic, a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and a former Rome Bureau Chief and European Culture correspondent for The New York Times. She is also Curator of Cultural Programs at The American Library in Paris, conceiving public events for the largest English-language lending library on the Continent. She regularly publishes textured profiles and features at the intersection of culture and politics, as well as literary criticism. She has reported from more than two dozen countries and interviewed heads of state as well as major cultural figures, including four Nobel Laureates in literature.