--Mabry, Newsweek Chief of Correspondents, to Pen Definitive Work On One of the World's Most Complex and Influential Figures--
NEW YORK, February 23, 2005 - In a preempt, Rodale Executive Editor Leigh Haber has acquired North American rights to an important new biography of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by Newsweek Senior Editor and Chief of Correspondents Marcus Mabry. The deal was negotiated with literary agent Charlotte Sheedy. The author is expected to complete the manuscript in 18 months, and the book will be published soon thereafter.
The biography is to be titled TWICE AS GOOD: The Souls of Condoleezza Rice. In an effort to understand Rice's historic ascension to Secretary of State, her politics and her policies-and her chances of reaching an even higher office-Mabry will look to her childhood in Alabama as well as her terms as Provost at Stanford and as National Security Advisor in the Bush Administration, examining the pivotal role she has played in shaping the most aggressive and controversial American foreign policy in a generation.
Mabry is an African American who shares Rice's status as a former fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; and, coincidentally, both concentrated their studies at Stanford on the Soviet Union. It is from this uniquely shared perspective that he will write a biography that not only tells the story of the most powerful African American woman in the history of U.S. politics but also examines the larger questions of identity, race, class and politics that her story poses for blacks, whites and both political parties. As a former foreign correspondent and the author of White Bucks and Black-eyed Peas, a memoir on race and class in America, renown for his balanced reportage and analysis, Mabry will explore the price Rice has paid for her ambition in terms of her sometime contradictory status in the African American community as well as the political and policy choices that Rice has made-and will make as Secretary of State-and their ramifications for America and the world.
