Bestselling Author │ Journalist │ Human Rights Advocate
We Americans need to learn from our mistakes, from
the flailing, ineffective way we, as a nation, conducted the “war-on-terror”
after the attacks of 9/11, and from the way we’ve failed to make our case to
the moderate, peace-loving majority of people at the heart of the Muslim World.
If we want to heal the wounded relationship between Islam and the West, we have
to learn how to wage peace as aggressively as we wage
war.
—David Oliver Relin
For two decades, award-winning journalist David
Oliver Relin has focused on reporting about social issues and their effect on
children, both in the U.S.,
and around the world.
In his bestselling and award-winning book, Three
Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace...One School
at a Time, Relin tells the stirring tale of Greg Mortenson, an American 
mountain climber and nurse who becomes an unlikely
champion of education through the accidental relationship he developed with a
village in a remote region of the Karakoram of Pakistan while on his way home
from a failed attempt to summit K2.
Three Cups of Tea is one of the most remarkable
adventure stories of our time. Greg Mortenson’s dangerous and difficult quest
to build schools in the wildest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only a
thrilling read, it’s proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination
of character and determination, really can change the world.
—Tom Brokaw
Through this incredible account of humanitarian
endeavor, Mortenson and Relin offer hope by suggesting that collaborative
efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education in Pakistan and
Afghanistan—particularly for girls—can be one of the most effective means of countering
Islamic extremism in the region.
The root causes of terrorism are not extremists named
Osama or Saddam. The real enemies are poverty and ignorance. Through education
and economic opportunity you can offer a child enough hope, a bright enough
future, that the lure of their life is stronger than the appeal of a martyr's
violent death. One 250-pound smart bomb costs about $25,000. One Afghan or
Pakistani primary school, built by the Central Asia Institute, costs the same
amount of money, and will provide thousands of students with a balanced,
nonextremist education for decades. Which, in the long run, do you really think
will make us safer?
—David Oliver Relin
Three Cups of Tea has captivated readers and is being discussed at campus-wide readings
and in community one-book events across the nation. A runaway New York
Times bestseller, in 2007 it was also selected as Time Magazine’s
Asia Book Of The Year and as a Critic’s Choice by People Magazine. It
was also awarded the 2007 Kiriyama Prize for nonfiction and chosen as the 2007
Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Book Of The Year.
In his work as an investigative journalist, Relin has
been committed to increasing awareness about critical human rights
issues. His interviews with child soldiers (including a profile of
teenager Ishmael Beah, who would later author the bestseller A Long Way Gone)
have been included in Amnesty International reports and his investigation into
the way the INS abused children in its custody contributed to the
reorganization of that agency.
David Oliver Relin is a graduate of Vassar and was
awarded the prestigious Teaching/Writing Fellowship at the Iowa Writer’s
Workshop. After Iowa,
he received a Michener Fellowship to support his groundbreaking 1992 bicycle
trip the length of Vietnam.
He spent two additional years reporting about Vietnam
opening to the world, while he was based in Hue,
Vietnam's
former imperial capital. In addition to Vietnam
and Pakistan,
he has traveled to, and/or reported from, much of East
Asia.
Relin is finishing a new book about blindness in the developing world and is currently at work on a secret book about
food, a children’s book with the artist Amy Ruppel and a novel about land mine
survivors in Vietnam.
He is a Contributing Editor for Parade and over the years he
has won dozens of national awards for his work as both an editor and
investigative reporter. He feels lucky to make his home in Portland,
Oregon.
Selected Lecture Topics
- Three Cups of Tea
- See How They Shine: The Himalayan Cataract Project
- The War on Terror:
Learning from Our Mistakes
- History and Current Politics of Southeast
Asia
- Child Hunger and Poverty in the US
& Innovative Efforts to Alleviate It
- Volunteerism & Public Service: How Individuals can Change
the World
- Travel & Personal Development
- Investigative Journalism
Selected Writings
See How They Shine (Random House, forthcoming 2011)
Three Cups of Tea: One Mans Mission
to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations--One School
at a Time (with Greg Mortenson, Viking, 2006)
Selected Awards
2007 Kiriyama Prize Award for Nonfiction (with Greg Mortenson)
2007 Time Magazine, Asia Book of The Year
(with Greg Mortenson)
2007 Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Book Of
The Year
2006 People Magazine Critic’s Choice
1992 Michener Fellowship
Media
To view an interview with David Relin on PlumTV.com, click here.
To read the National Geographic Adventure cover story by David Relin about his recent work with the Himalayan Cataract Project, click here.
For more information about David Oliver Relin and his
work, please go to www.davidoliverrelin.com.