Charles T. Powers (1943–1996) was an American

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

and writer, chiefly remembered for his novel '' In the Memory of the Forest'', set in Poland. A native of

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, Powers began his writing career at the '' Kansas City Star''. He was a former Nieman Fellow at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, and spent twenty years as a journalist for the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

''. He spent long stretches of his tenure with the ''Times'' as a foreign correspondent in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, based in

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper h ...

from 1980 to 1986, and as Eastern European Bureau Chief from 1986 to 1991, during which time he lived in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

. Powers lived in

Bennington, Vermont Bennington is a town in Bennington County, Vermont, United States. It is one of two shire towns (county seats) of the county, the other being Manchester. As of the 2020 US Census, the population was 15,333. Bennington is the most populous t ...

for the last five years of his life. While there, he completed his first and only novel ''In the Memory of the Forest''. The book has since been translated into German, French, Polish and Italian. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' writer Alan Cowell wrote an essay about Powers that was published in 1997 in the '' International Herald Tribune''. Cowell and Powers had worked together as foreign correspondents, based in Nairobi. Powers was married to the author Cheryl Bentsen.

Honors and awards

* 1964 William Randolph Hearst Foundation award, outstanding collegiate journalist * 1984 Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists, for distinguished foreign correspondence

References

1943 births 1996 deaths 20th-century American novelists Nieman Fellows American male journalists American male novelists Novelists from Missouri 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American male writers {{US-journalist-1940s-stub