Our Common Humanity in the Information Age. Principles and Values for Development

Uzodinma Iweala, Author
Uzodinma Iweala is the author of the novel “Beasts of No Nation”. A Nigerian American 
born in Washington DC in 1982, he attended St. Albans School for Boys and Harvard 
University where he majored in English.
“Beasts of No Nation”, his first novel, was published soon after his graduation from 
University. It was short-listed for a number of prizes including the Commonwealth 
Writers Prize and has won the American Academy of Arts and Letters first fiction award, 
the New York Public Library Young lions Award and the LA Times first book award. 

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186 | Our Common Humanity in the Information Age 
“Beasts of No Nation” was named a best book of the year by Time Magazine, People 
Magazine, and Entertainment Weekly and has been selected as a New York Times 100 
Best Books of the year. He has written pieces for the New York Times Magazine, The 
Independent, The Spectator, and the Financial Times Magazine.
Iweala has worked with internally displaced peoples in Northern Nigeria. He currently 
works for the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columb ia University. 
He is currently working on a book about HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and will 
attend Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in the fall of 2008. 
Katty Kay, Correspondent, BBC
Katty Kay is a Washington based correspondent for BBC News and regularly anchors 
The Evening News programmes seen on BBC World. Katty brings a truly global 
perspective to her coverage of American politics as her broadcast journalism career spans 
more than 15 years and 4 continents. She is also a regular guest analyst on “The Chris 
Mathews Show”, “The Lehrer News Hour,” and many other news programs.
BBC World is the BBC's 24-hour international news and information channel available in 
over 200 countries worldwide. Katty's career with the BBC began in Zimbabwe in 1990 
where she filed radio reports for the Africa service of BBC World Service Radio. Among 
the stories she covered were Zimbabwean land reform, the independence of Namibia and 
the demise of apartheid in South Africa.
From Africa, Kay went on to work as a BBC correspondent in London and later Tokyo. 
She settled in Washington in 1996 where she joined the London Times Washington 
bureau before returning to the BBC in 2002.
From Washington, Kay has covered the Clinton Administration, two presidential 
elections as well as wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. She also witnessed first-hand 
the huge change in American policy and psyche brought on by the attacks of September 
11.
Kay grew up all over the Middle East, where her father was posted as a British diplomat. 
She studied Modern Languages at Oxford. She is a fluent French and Italian speaker.