A distinguished journalist and author, Christopher Dickey currently serves as Newsweek's Paris bureau chief (since 1995) and Middle East regional editor (since 1993). He reports on France's politics, economy and society, as well as breaking stories throughout southern Europe, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf.
An experienced combat reporter and expert on terrorism, Dickey has covered everything from the Contra rebels of Nicaragua to massacres in Hebron; other stories include the World Trade Center plot, sarin gas attacks in Tokyo and the bombing in Oklahoma City. He played a key role in Newsweek's coverage of the Gulf War, particularly in explaining the Arab point of view. When Princess Diana was killed in Paris, Dickey was on the scene that night, reporting for Newsweek and also breaking the news to world audiences over CNN. He has since appeared regularly on that network as well as NBC and ABC.
Dickey joined Newsweek in 1986 as Cairo bureau chief. He moved to the Paris bureau in 1988 and then back to Cairo again in 1992. He was given the additional post of Middle East regional editor in 1993. Dickey came to Newsweek from The Washington Post where he had served as Cairo bureau chief, Mexico City bureau chief, a metro reporter, managing editor of The Washington Post Magazine and assistant editor and columnist of the paper's Book World section.
Dickey made his mark as a novelist with "Innocent Blood" (Simon & Schuster, 1997): "A narrative that asks what it means to be an American, alone and rootless at the end of this, the American Century," wrote The New York Times. His nonfiction book "Expats" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990) was called "without question one of the best travel books of this or any other year," by The Los Angeles Times. "With the Contras" (Simon & Schuster, 1986), also nonfiction, was "well-documented, grippingly told and carefully argued," said The Boston Globe. The New York Times picked it as a Notable Book of the Year.
His most recent book, "Summer of Deliverance: A Memoir of Father and Son" (Simon & Schuster, August 1998), tells the story of his dramatic, often angry relationship — and ultimate reconciliation — with his father, poet and novelist James Dickey. "An amazing portrait," wrote Kirkus Reviews, while Booklist called it a "ferocious memoir of sorrow, rage and love."
Dickey has received many journalism awards and honors, including an Inter-American Press Association award for his overall coverage of El Salvador and an Overseas Press Club award for his reporting on its death squads in the 1980s. In 1998 he was given the Edward Weintal Award for Distinguished Diplomatic Reporting by Georgetown University. He is a former press fellow, and current member of the Council on Foreign Relations.