On a hot January afternoon in 2010, reporter Jonathan M. Katz heard a loud rumbling outside his home in the hills above Port-au-Prince, Haiti. At first, he thought it was a water truck. Then the bed began to vibrate, bottles shimmied on a nearby table, and the floor started to move. The roar increased as the deadliest earthquake in the history of the Western Hemisphere unleashed its full force. Mr. Katz survived. Thousands upon thousands of others were not so lucky.
Mr. Katz tells the story of the earthquake and its complicated aftermath in The Big Truck that Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster. The book, now out in paperback, has won many honors, including the Overseas Press Club of America’s prize for the year’s best book on international affairs. In 2011, Mr. Katz was awarded the prestigious Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism for his work in Haiti. He now works as a freelance journalist covering international and domestic affairs.
