Join us for an enchanting tour of France with New York Times foreign correspondent and best-selling author Elaine Sciolino and former Ambassador of France to the US, Gérard Araud.

In the follow-up to her bestselling book, The Only Street in Paris, Elaine Sciolino, former Paris Bureau Chief of The New York Times, will share stories of her adventures along the most romantic river in the world as she discusses her beguiling new book, The Seine: The River That Made Paris. 

Sciolino will discuss artists like Monet and Matisse, writers such as Hemingway and Flaubert, musicians, and filmmakers who were inspired by the river. She’ll regale us with tales of the wonderful real life characters she met on her journey down the Seine as she charts a course through history, recounting how the river has carried Roman conquerors, Viking invaders, World War II soldiers, and the ashes of Joan of Arc and of Napoléon Bonaparte in its current.  Along the way, Sciolino will reveal how the river that created Paris and shaped the lives of its inhabitants has touched her own life.

In English. Free and open to the public. No RSVP necessary.

Elaine Sciolino is the author of five books of nonfiction, including the New York Times bestseller The Only Street in Paris. She is a contributing writer and former Paris bureau chief for the New York Times and has worked as a foreign correspondent in countries around the world. In 2010, she was decorated as a chevalier of the Legion of Honor, the highest distinction of the French state, for her “special contribution” to the friendship between France and the United States. She and her husband have lived in Paris since 2002.

Gérard Araud is unanimously considered one of the most brilliant of France’s ambassadors. Ambassador Secretary in Tel Aviv in charge of questions surrounding the Middle East at the CAP du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (1982-1984), Counselor for the French Embassy in Washington (1987-1991), Assistant Director of Community Affairs for MAE (1991-1993), Diplomatic Counselor for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the French delegate for the North Atlantic Council (1995), Director of Strategic Affairs, Security, and Disarmament for MAE (2000), French Ambassador to Israel (2003-2006), Managing Director of Political and Security Affairs, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer of the MAE (in which role he negotiated the Iranian nuclear dossier on behalf of France), Permanent Representative of France to the Security Council and Head of the Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations in New York (July 2009).
Araud notably negotiated significant resolutions on Iran, Libya (those which would permit military intervention in Libya in 2011), Syria, the Ivory Coast, and Mali. He was named Ambassador to the United States in July 2014. He retired from the Quai d’Orsay in the spring of 2019.
Gérard Araud has published articles in the journals Commentaire and Esprit under pseudonyms and will begin writing a regular column for Le Monde starting from September 2019.