Fresh Air, Richard Lourie and Pamela Gien

By: Terry Gross

Narrated by: Terry Gross

Writer Richard Lourie and South African writer and actress Pamela Gien on this edition of Fresh Air. His new book is a biography of the Russian scientist, dissident, and Nobel peace prize winner Andrei Sakharov. He's considered one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century. Sakharov created Russia's H-bomb, but later underwent a moral awakening and confronted his country over issues of nuclear responsibility and human rights. Lourie also translated the Sakharov's memoirs. Pamela Gien's off-Broadway one-woman show is "The Syringa Tree." It's a semi-autobiographical play about the love between two families, one black, one white. She plays 28 different characters in it. (Broadcast Date: April 25, 2002)

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