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Belén Fernández is a journalist who travels extensively throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe, observing first-hand and reporting on political and social events. In her 2011 book, The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso Books, Belén critiques Thomas Friedman as a chief apologist for what she sees as problems of the neoliberal order.

Background
Belén was born in Washington, DC, on March 7, 1982, and grew up in Austin, Texas. She attended Columbia University in New York City and spent one year at the University of Rome La Sapienza before earning her bachelor's degree with a concentration in political science in 2003. Belén speaks English, Spanish, Italian, and is proficient in Turkish. She maintains a nomadic lifestyle with no fixed residence. Instead, she has traveled extensively throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe, observing first-hand and reporting on political and social events. Belén has investigated rumors and reported first-hand on events in a number of hot spots across the globe, including: Honduras on the 2009 coup; Paraguay on rumors of Hezbollah in the tri-border area with Argentina and Brazil; Turkey on the 2013 demonstrations in Istanbul; and South Lebanon on claims of a major Hezbollah military build-up.

Her observations and reports have been derided by some, including Pamela Geller, who called her a "useful idiota" for the "Al Jazeera terror outlet."

Praise for her work has come from Alexander Cockburn, Ramzy Baroud, Hamid Dabashi, David Cronin, Dahr Jamail, Paul Craig Roberts, among others. Blogger Freddie de Boer included Belèn in his 2013 short list of "Throwing Heat: Nonfiction essayists and bloggers who bring it." "Fernandez doesn’t write like a polemicist, though she could," de Boer wrote, "and she doesn’t write with malice, though she’d be perfectly entitled. She writes with the reservation and concision of a coroner delivering an autopsy; the deed is always already done. That might sound cold, or cruel, but it reminds you that the greater part of "things are not as they should be" is "this is how they are." Fernandez is an activist, but first she’s a clinician."

The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work
In 2011, Verso Books published Belén's critique of Thomas Friedman in The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work. In an interview with Robert Jensen for Truthout, Belén explained that her analysis was based on a systematic review of Friedman's books and his columns, including all published following his appointment in 1995 as foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times.

Writer and critic Pankaj Mishra declared "there is no wittier or sharper account of Thomas Friedman’s intellectual and moral atrocities than Belen Fernandez’s The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work."

In 2012, The Imperial Messenger was named a Truthout "Progessive Pick of the Week" and a "Gawker Book Club" selection.

Other Works
Belén also is the author of Coffee with Hezbollah, an account of a 10-week hitchhiking expedition with photographer Amelia Opalinska through the rubble of Lebanon following the Israeli invasion of 2006.

Belén is a prolific writer of shorter analysis and opinion pieces. Her articles on such topics as environmental injustice, human rights offenses, and other socioeconomic problems are regularly published by Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera America, and Middle East Eye. Belén's shorter writings as well as information about her published books are gathered at her blog, linked below.

Belén's December 2012 article "Dirty White Gold" for Al Jazeera was listed in Project Censored's Top 25 Most Censored Stories of 2012-2013 and reprinted in Censored 2014: Fearless Speech in Fateful Times.

Belén is a member of the editorial board for Jacobin magazine and a contributing editor at Ricochet. Her articles have also appeared in the London Review of Books blog, Counterpunch, VICE Magazine, Salon, AlterNet, In These Times, Al Akhbar English, Guernica Magazine, TeleSUR English, The Electronic Intifada, Upside Down World, and Venezuelanalysis.com, among others.