"The Writing on the Wall"--Hannes Artens on Iran at War at Red Hill February 6, 2008

Hannes Artens: the Writing on the Wall at Red Hill Books

February 6th, Wednesday evening at 7pm

Sponsored by Global Exchange, Code Pink and Red Hill Books

Hannes Artens will discuss the recent National Intelligence Estimate report regarding Iran's nuclear capabilities, as well as his book and the world in which we live today, with threats of war with Iran and failures and events in Iraq.

Hannes Artens has released an antiwar book called 'The Writing on the Wall'. The political novel warns of a war with Iran and its characters parallel many of our current world leaders. He has been associated with the Carter Center and a think tank advising the German parliament on U.S. foreign policy. He has traveled extensively in the region and his first-hand impressions from the streets and bazaars of Damascus, Amman and Cairo, together with military and political experts' assessments, form the basis of this forceful premonition of what America is in for if it were to attack Iran.

A professing Humanist and venerator of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Hannes, like Stefan Zweig, for whom the café constituted 'the best educational establishment for everything new', spent his schooldays there and drew out his university studies by operating a travel agency in Southern Africa and counseling indigenous Himba tribes on ecological tourism - certainly not an asset for his CV but years of maturation and character molding he'd never want to miss. After finally graduating in International Conflict Analysis as an expert on mediation and negotiation techniques, he accepted a post at the Atlanta-based Carter Center, where he accompanied a reconciliation process among antagonistic Cuban American organizations with the aim to collectively influence U.S.-Cuba policy. Incapable of assimilating into the ivory tower, gobbledygook, and debauching in estranged-from-reality theories of German academia, he soon abandoned his Ph.D. in Hamburg and embarked on an extended tour through post-Iraq shaped Anatolia, Syria, and Jordan. The impressions he gained on these trips induced him to draft The Writing on the Wall, with which he'd like to invite the audience at Red Hill Books to debate.

Political pundit Hannes Artens delivers the most controversial political fiction in years; a gripping and thought-provoking depiction of America in tomorrow s troubled world as topical as a Frontline® documentary that is bound to trigger fierce debate. The Writing on the Wall is as much a no-holds-barred accounting for the last six years as a forceful premonition of what may follow if the United States were to attack Iran. With provocative frankness and an abundance of political allusions some will find too realistic to handle, this cautionary tale exposes the forces that opened the Pandora s Box of the Middle East. Through stirring personal fates, it guides us into the gray area where today s frightening fiction can become the future s bloody fact - a future we may still have the power to change.

Cost: FREE!

Official Site: http://www.dogearedbooks.com/redhill

(Photo credit: The Carter Center - Hannes Artens, center pictured with former First Lady Rosalynn Carter (left) and former President Jimmy Carter (right).)

Official Website: http://www.dogearedbooks.com/redhill