International Affairs

Nien Cheng and her husband were educated abroad and lived a comfortable, bourgeois life before China's Cultural Revolution. Though Cheng faced persecution, interrogation, and imprisonment, she was mostly able to maintain her lifestyle--and her loyalty to her country. She now lives in Washington, D.C.

Journalist Raymond Bonner's new book examines how the United States government turned a blind eye to Ferdinand Marcos' rise to power and declaration of martial law in the Philippines. His account draws from myriad interviews and documents obtained through FOIA requests.

After decades in Lebanon, missionary Ben Weir was kidnapped by a jihadi group. His wife, Carol Weir, worked tirelessly to secure his release. They've cowritten a memoir about the ordeal, called Hostage Bound, Hostage Free.

White anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman identifies ways in which recent reforms passed by the South African government have led to some desegregation. She believes that the recent sanctions advocated by the Reagan administration will have little impact on her home country's racist policies.

Anand Nagar, which translates into the City of Joy, is one of the most densely-populated slums in Calcutta. In order to learn more about how people survive in dire poverty, French writer Dominique LaPierre and his wife lived in a hovel alongside the neighborhood's residents. His book about the experience, called The City of Joy, has just been released in paperback.

The Nobel Prize-winning writer's formative experiences were informed by war in Eastern Europe, an itinerant childhood, and American novels and films. He has lived in the United States since 1960.

Chilean-American writer Ariel Dorfman has recently published a number of articles critical of his home country's repressive government.

Philadelphia Inquirer Africa correspondent Robert Rosenthal was arrested and tortured while reporting in Uganda. He describes the experience to Fresh Air host Terry Gross.

Robert J. Lifton is a psychiatrist and author who is a board member of the group Physicians for Social Responsibility. His works include "Indefensible Weapons: The Political and Psychological Case Against Nuclearism" and "Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans: Neither Victims Nor Executioners." His latest book, "The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and The Psychology of Genocide," investigates the capacity for human cruelty and is based on interviews with former Nazi doctors and their surviving victims.

Dennis Brutus is an exiled South African poet. Brutus was active in the anti-apartheid movement in the country which led to his imprisonment and eventual exile. Brutus moved to the United Stated in 1970, and gained permanent residence status in 1983 after a struggle in which the U. S. attempted to deport him. Brutus joins the show to give his impressions of the South African government's proposed reforms and the current violent ant-apartheid protests in the country, as well as read several of his poems.