Interpreter of maladies in a crisis-hit world,Friedman is Express Adda guest today

This series began in the Capital on August 19,with a panel that included global marketing and ad guru Martin Sorrell. Last month,the Adda travelled to Mumbai to host actor Shah Rukh Khan.

Friedman himself is making a return to the city and The Indian Express,where he had interacted with journalists at an Idea Exchange last November.

“We are delighted to host Friedman,to pick his mind to understand what’s going on around us,” said Gupta. “For he’s not just a commentator,he bristles with ideas,solutions and original questions.”

Friedman captured the imagination of many in India with his international best-seller The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. He travelled extensively in India and China to research the book,and the title itself is a phrase the author picked up during a conversation with Nandan Nilekani,the then CEO of Infosys.

The book sold like hot rotis from bookstores as well as pavements alike.

Friedman,58,began his journalism career with the London Bureau of United Press International (UPI) in 1978 as a general assignment reporter. After a stint covering the Beirut civil war,he joined the NYT in 1981. He won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his reportage on Israeli invasion of Beirut and its tragic aftermath.

In 1984,he transferred to Jerusalem,and won his second Pulitzer,for “informed and balanced coverage of Israel”,as the Times’s bureau chief there. His coverage of the Middle East and its complex social,political and economic aspects would give him — and his readers — a prescient insight into the larger forces of globalisation itself.

Since 1989,he has been the Chief Diplomatic Correspondent,White House Correspondent and International Economics Correspondent for the NYT. In 1995,he took over the newspaper’s Foreign Affairs column,and his writings won him his third Pulitzer — this time for Commentary — “for his clarity of vision,based on extensive reporting,in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat”.

Friedman released his sixth book,That Used To Be Us,last month. Co-authored by Michael Mandelbaum,a professor at Johns Hopkins University,the book discusses — and debates — the role of the federal government in the renewal of the United States. A hot-button subject like no other — and one that perfectly lends itself to an Adda with Friedman.