Alan Riding, born in 1943, is a journalist and writer born in Brazil to British parents and educated in the UK. He studied economics at Bristol University and was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn, London. He then chose a career in journalism, moving from London to New York with Reuters and then to Mexico with The Financial Times and The Economist. In 1977, Riding joined The New York Times in Mexico, where he covered the Nicaraguan revolution and the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. Alan Riding in Paris, France – Author of And The Show Went On – cultural life in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II, including writers and artists.
At the end of his assignment in Mexico, Riding wrote Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans (Knopf/Vintage), which has sold more than 450,000 copies worldwide and is now considered a classic on modern Mexico. From a base in Rio de Janeiro, he then covered South America – especially the transitions from military to civilian rule and the guerrilla wars in Peru and Colombia – before returning to Europe, first Rome, then Paris, in 1989.
After five years as The New York Times Paris bureau chief, Riding became the paper’s European arts correspondent. While in that post, he co-authored Essential Shakespeare Handbook and Opera, two illustrated reference books published by Dorling Kindersley. He left The New York Times in July 2007 to focus on his new book, And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris, now published by Knopf.
In 1980, Riding received the Maria Moors Cabot Prize from Columbia University for his reporting on Latin America, and he has also been honored by the Overseas Press Club and the Latin American Studies Association in the United States. In 2003, Riding was made a member of the Orden del guila Azteca (Order of the Mexican Eagle), the highest honor Mexico bestows on foreign citizens.
