Dusko Doder is an award-winning journalist and author. He worked for the Washington Post as a reporter, foreign correspondent and editor. As Moscow correspondent, he had a world beat on the death of Soviet dictator Yuri Andropov, much to the chagrin of the CIA which emphatically denied the story. He was the only western journalist to interview Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. Doder won two Overseas Press Club Citations for Excellence and the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting. The Washington Post nominated him for the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from Moscow. He has written a number of non-fiction books including the best-selling biography of Mikhail Gorbachev: The Heretic in the Kremlin. The Firebird Affair is his first novel.