New Yorker correspondent Evan Osnos to speak at UVA on post-election policy

How will the country look after the 2016 election? That is the question for Evan Osnos, a writer for The New Yorker, who will speak on “Bridging the Divide: Passions, Parties and America Beyond 2016” at Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. in the Abbott Center Auditorium at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. Osnos’ appearance is sponsored by the Jefferson Scholars Foundation and the Shadwell Society, as a part of its speaker series.

Osnos, the magazine’s chief Washington correspondent, is one of the world’s foremost China experts. His book, “Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China,” won a 2014 National Book Award and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Based on eight years of living in Beijing, “Age of Ambition” is a multi-layered look at the rise of the individual in China and the clash between aspiration and authoritarianism. Osnos has written in-depth profiles and essays on many of America’s and China’s most influential cultural, political and business figures, including Vice President Joe Biden; Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party; Ai Weiwei, a Chinese artist and activist; and Donald Trump.

Osnos has covered the 2016 presidential campaign, gun control in America, modern conservatism and the Flint, Michigan water crisis. In 2003, he embedded himself with the U.S. Marines during the invasion of Iraq and spent two years as the Chicago Tribune’s Middle East correspondent. His piece, “The Fallout,” about the events and aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, won a 2012 Overseas Press Club Award.

Prior to The New Yorker, Osnos worked as the Chicago Tribun’s Beijing bureau chief, contributing to a series on the global trade in unsafe imports that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. He was the 2007 recipient of the Livingston Award, the nation’s leading prize for young journalists, and, in the same year, won the Asia Society’s Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Journalism on Asia.

A graduate of Harvard University and a fellow of the Brookings Institution, Osnos is a contributor on public radio’s “This American Life” and PBS’ “Frontline,” and has made numerous appearances on television programs such as PBS’ “Charlie Rose,” MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and CNN’s “GPS.”

The event is free and open to the public, but advance tickets are required. They are available at the Arts Box Office and online at jeffersonscholars.org/news. If the event sells out, unclaimed tickets may be available at the door.