Audiobooks by Rod Nordland

Waiting for the Monsoon

A legendary New York Times war correspondent delivers his unforgettable final dispatch: a deeply moving meditation on life inspired by his sudden battle with terminal brain cancer. For thirty years, Rod Nordland shadowed death. As one of his generation's preeminent war correspondents, he reported in over 150 countries, many of which were in violent upheaval, and was no stranger to witnessing tragedy. But in summer 2019, during the height of India’s erratic monsoon season, Nordland was suddenly faced with a tragedy of his own: he collapsed in the middle of a morning jog, was rushed to the hospital, and diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor. After decades chasing conflicts across the globe, Nordland, now confined to a hospital bed, found the strength to face more personal conflicts. He reconnected with his estranged children and became closer with them than he ever thought possible. He repaired a friendship with a best friend that had been broken for twenty years. The arrogance and certitude that dominated his every action was replaced by a lucid sense of humility and generosity that persisted even after he left the hospital. Norland’s tragedy became, in his own words, “a gift that has enriched my life.”   Waiting for the Monsoon is the exemplary story of confronting death with both eyes open, and of the human capacity to persevere even in the most difficult of times. With tremendous clarity, grace, and courage, Nordland has delivered a powerful final assignment, revealing how facing the unknown can transform experience and change our relationship to the world around us. 

Rod Nordland (Author), Peter Ganim (Narrator)

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The Lovers: Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet, the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Esc

A riveting, real-life equivalent of The Kite Runner-an astonishingly powerful and profoundly moving story of a young couple willing to risk everything for love that puts a human face on the ongoing debate about women's rights in the Muslim world. Zakia and Ali were from different tribes, but they grew up on neighboring farms in the hinterlands of Afghanistan. By the time they were young teenagers, Zakia, strikingly beautiful and fiercely opinionated, and Ali, shy and tender, had fallen in love. Defying their families, sectarian differences, cultural conventions, and Afghan civil and Islamic law, they ran away together only to live under constant threat from Zakia's large and vengeful family, who have vowed to kill her to restore the family's honor. They are still in hiding. Despite a decade of American good intentions, women in Afghanistan are still subjected to some of the worst human rights violations in the world. Rod Nordland, then the Kabul bureau chief of the New York Times, had watched these abuses unfold for years when he came upon Zakia and Ali, and has not only chronicled their plight, but has also shepherded them from danger. The Lovers will do for women's rights generally what Malala's story did for women's education. It is an astonishing story about self-determination and the meaning of love that illustrates, as no policy book could, the limits of Western influence on fundamentalist Islamic culture and, at the same time, the need for change.

Rod Nordland (Author), Peter Ganim (Narrator)

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