Anne Nelson

Anne Nelson

Anne Nelson’s career spans the fields of writing, human rights, and international affairs.  Nelson, a native of Stillwater, Oklahoma, graduated from Yale University.  As a young journalist she covered the wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, publishing her articles and photographs in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times and reporting for various radio and television outlets. 

As of September 11, 2001, Nelson was the director of the International Program at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.  Her first play, “The Guys,” is based on her experiences following in the attack.  Nelson’s 1986 book, Murder Under Two Flags, was also adapted as a feature film starring Robert Duvall and Kevin Spacey. 

Nelson’s newest book is Red Orchestra: the Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler.  It tells the true story of a group of German artists and intellectuals who infiltrated the Nazi regime ministries in the effort to defeat it. The New York Times praised the “deep sympathy and unsentimental compassion of ’Red Orchestra,’ with its story of a tiny band that somehow managed to summon the wild courage to take a stand against a barbarous status quo.”
Nelson currently teaches international media studies at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.  She lives in New York with her husband, author and environmentalist George Black.