Jacki Lyden
Longtime listeners recognize Jacki Lyden's voice from her frequent work as a substitute host on NPR. As a journalist who has been with NPR since 1979, Lyden regards herself first and foremost as a storyteller and looks for the distinctive human voice in a huge range of national and international stories.
In the last five years, Lyden has reported from diverse locations including Paris, New York, the backstreets of Baghdad, the byways around rural Kentucky and spent time among former prostitutes in Nashville.
Most recently, Lyden focused her reporting on the underground, literally. In partnership with National Geographic, she and photographer Stephen Alvarez explored the catacombs and underground of the City of Light. The report of the expedition aired on Weekend Edition Sunday and was the cover story of the February 2011 National Geographic magazine.
Lyden's book, Daughter of the Queen of Sheba, recounts her own experience growing up under the spell of a colorful mother suffering from manic depression. The memoir has been published in 11 foreign editions and is considered a memoir classic by The New York Times. Daughter of the Queen of Sheba has been in process as a film, based upon a script by the A-list writer, Karen Croner. She is working on a sequel to the book which will be about memory and what one can really hold on to in a tumultuous life.
Along with Scott Simon, current host of Weekend Edition Saturday, and producer Jonathan Baer, Lyden helped to pioneer NPR's Chicago bureau in 1979. Ten years later, Lyden became NPR's London correspondent and reported on the IRA in Northern Ireland.
In the summer of 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Lyden went to Amman, Jordan, where she covered the Gulf War often traveling to and reporting from Baghdad and many other Middle Eastern cites. Her work supported NPR's 1991 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for Gulf War coverage. Additionally, Lyden has reported from countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and Iran. In 1995, she did a groundbreaking series for NPR on Iran on the emerging civil society and dissent, called "Iran at the Crossroads."
At home in Brooklyn on September 11, 2001, Lyden was NPR's first reporter on the air from New York that day. She shared in NPR's George Foster Peabody Award and Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Lyden later covered the aftermath of the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
In 2002, Lyden and producer Davar Ardalan received the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio and Television for best foreign documentary for "Loss and Its Aftermath." The film was about bereavement among Palestinians and Jews in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.
That same year Lyden hosted the "National Story Project" on Weekend All Things Considered with internationally-acclaimed novelist Paul Auster. The book that emerged from the show, I Thought My Father Was God, became a national bestseller.
Over the years, Lyden's articles have been publications such as Granta, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is a popular speaker, especially on mental health.
A graduate of Valparaiso University, Lyden was given an honorary Ph.D. from the school in 2010. She participated in Valparaiso's program of study at Cambridge University and was a 1991-92 Benton Fellow in Middle East studies at the University of Chicago.
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In a rare address to Syria's Parliament, President Bashar Assad says he is taking steps to pull his nation's military forces from Lebanon and tells the United Nations that his plan is to make a "coordinated withdrawl." Assad's speech was watched by thousands of protesters in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.
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Sudanese leaders sign an historic power-sharing agreement that is expected to end decades of civil war between the northern government and southern rebels. Hear NPR's Jacki Lyden and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Danforth, who attended the signing ceremony in Nairobi, Kenya.
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Fattah candidate Mahmoud Abbas declares victory over rival Mustafa Barghouti in Palestine's presidential race. With turnout estimated at more than 60 percent, polls show a large lead for Abbas, who would succeed Yasser Arafat. Hear NPR's Jacki Lyden and NPR's Julie McCarthy.
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Derek Kirk Kim's debut graphic novel Same Difference and Other Stories has won the top three awards of the comic world. He talks with NPR's Jacki Lyden.
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Jazz trumpeter Clark Terry, 83, was a mentor to Miles Davis and performed with Count Basie and Duke Ellington. He recently donated his archive of memorabilia to William Paterson University in New Jersey. NPR's Jacki Lyden interviews Terry just before he takes the stage at New York's Jazz Gallery.
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The massive, fatal waves that resulted from Sunday's powerful earthquake in Southeast India are among the most destructive tsunamis of the past 50 years. Hear NPR's Jacki Lyden and Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center in Hawaii.
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Exit polls in Ukraine's second attempt at a presidential election indicate a landslide victory for opposition leader Victor Yushchenko. With a high voter turnout estimated at 78 percent, Yushchenko captured more than 60 percent of the ballots cast. Hear NPR's Jacki Lyden and NPR's Lawrence Sheets.