Mischa Berlinski (1973–) is an American novelist and journalist. Born in New York, he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and later worked as a journalist in Thailand and elsewhere in Asia. His debut novel, “Fieldwork,” follows a fictional reporter investigating an American anthropologist imprisoned for murdering a missionary in northern Thailand; it was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. Drawing on his experience in Haiti, “Peacekeeping” examines United Nations operations, electoral politics, foreign aid workers, and their relationship with local society, while Berlinski received a Whiting Award in 2008. His fiction combines investigative and ethnographic methods to explore cultural misunderstanding, the contradictions of good intentions, and the limits of understanding other people from the outside.
