Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger Ricochet

Carlos Fernando Chamorro is one of the most important journalists in all of Latin America. He is a Nicaraguan—though the dictatorship has stripped him of his citizenship. He now works in exile, in Costa Rica. He is the son of Pedro Joaquín and Violeta Chamorro. His father was the editor of La Prensa, the newspaper that opposed the Somoza dictatorship. He was assassinated in 1978. His mother was elected president of Nicaragua in 1990. Carlos Fernando was involved with the Sandinista movement for some years. Like so many others, he turned into an opponent. They have hounded him out of the country. Yet he is still on their tail. With Jay, he discusses family, Nicaragua, and politics in general. 

Across the globe, Paul Rusesabagina is known as “the hotel manager.” In 2004, Don Cheadle portrayed Rusesabagina in the movie “Hotel Rwanda.” (Cheadle won an Academy Award for the portrayal.) In 1994, Rusesabagina was the general manager of a hotel in Kigali. In that capacity, he saved 1,268 refugees from murder—from the genocide. In 2005, George W. Bush bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Rusesabagina. But the hotel manager’s troubles were not ended. In 2020, he was kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured by the Rwandan dictatorship for two years and seven months. Jay has sat down with Rusesabagina at the Oslo Freedom Forum, asking about his life, and life more generally. 

Richard Brookhiser has written many books about the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers. He got interested when he went to college—to Yale, where he saw John Trumbull’s paintings. Now he has written a biography of the artist. A wonderful student and explainer and depicter, Brookhiser is. 

Illia Ponomarenko is one of the leading war reporters and defense analysts in Ukraine. He himself is Ukrainian—from the east of the country. He went to college in Mariupol, which has now been bludgeoned and taken over by Putin’s forces. Ponomarenko has come out with a book, mid-war: “I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv.” Jay talks with him about issues that gnaw at a great many. 

Mohamad Jebara grew up in Ottawa, Canada, the son of Lebanese immigrants. He, and they, were “cultural Muslims.” But he soon became a scholar of Islam, and a philologist. He is a man of formidable learning, and he has a gift for imparting what he knows to a general audience. From ages ten to twelve, he memorized the Koran. It is still there, in his head. He practices while driving or working out. His new book is “The Life of the Qu’ran.” Jay asks him some basic questions, questions to which many may like to know the answers. An interesting and illuminating confab. 

Simone Sepe and Saura Masconale teach at the University of Arizona. He is in the law school; she is in the Department of Political Economy and Moral Science. They are both associated with the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom. He is from Rome, she is from Verona. They are married, with three excellent children. Jay talks with them about their interests (and his).