Joel Whitneyis the author of Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers, which The New Republic called a “powerful warning.” His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Baffler, The Wall Street Journal, Boston Review and New York Magazine. He is a former features editor at Al Jazeera America and a founder and former editor-in-chief of Guernica for which he was awarded the 2017 PEN/Nora Magid Award for Excellence in Editing. His essays in The Baffler, Dissent and Salon were Notables in Best American Essays 2017, 2015 and 2013. He currently curates literary programs at the Brooklyn Public Library.  

FINKS How the C.I.A. Tricked the World’s Best Writers Joel Whitney When news broke that the CIA had colluded with literary magazines to produce cultural propaganda throughout the Cold War, a debate began that has never been resolved. Finks is a tale of two CIAs, and how they blurred the line between propaganda and literature. More