Nicholas Schmidle is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of To Live or To Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years Inside Pakistan. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, T: Travel, Slate, The New Republic and many others. He has been a fellow at the New America Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Center, and the International Reporting Project. 

In early 2006, Nicholas moved to Pakistan, backed by a writing fellowship from the Institute of Current World Affairs. He lived and reported in Pakistan for two years, before being deported from Pakistan in January 2008. He has also worked in Iran, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Central Asia, West Africa, Russia and the Balkans. He once spoke decent Persian and Urdu. Nicholas received the 2008 Kurt Schork Award for freelance journalism, based on his work in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is a graduate of James Madison University and American University. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and son.