Oliver August is a correspondent and editor for The Economist. He is focusing on Africa and the Middle East. He has been based in Baghdad, Beijing, Beirut, Damascus, Nairobi, New York and Singapore. August started his career as a correspondent for The Times of London. He covered financial markets in America, Europe and Asia, and worked as a war correspondent in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. His writing on Germany won him the Anglo-German Foundation Journalism Prize in 1998. August's first book, Along the Wall and Watchtowers, chronicles a journey along the former Iron Curtain and examines the political, economic and social consequences of German reunification. His second book, Inside the Red Mansion describes the epic search for Lai Changxing, China's most wanted man, and details the emergence of an entrepreneurial class in post-Communist China. The book was translated into eleven languages. August was born in Bremerhaven and grew up in northern Germany. His father was a theatre director and his mother an architect. He has a Bachelors degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University and a Masters degree in international relations from City University, London. [More at Wikipedia]