A.L. Bardach has written for most major media publications in the U.S. and U.K. (New York Times, Washington Post, POLITICO, Wall Street Journal magazine, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Bulwark, The New Republic, Slate, Newsweek, The Daily Beast as Writer-at-Large and Vanity Fair, where she was a staff reporter for a decade).

A prize-winning journalist and author, she has relayed between crime reporting, politics, foreign policy, the Caribbean and Latin America, to matters of faith, belief and the origins of The New Age. She has covered an eclectic range of political and cultural issues, including a deep dive into the Cuba/Miami/Washington nexus, the Middle East, and the life and work of India’s patron saint, Vivekananda.

The Columbia Journalism Review called her “the go-to journalist on all things Cuban and Miami” and she has won the praise from New Journalism icons Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese, as well as the eminent 20th century critics, Alfred Kazin and Irving Howe, with whom she studied.

Books by A. L. Bardach

“A. L. Bardach’s “Without Fidel” is news between hard covers by a relentless reporter who writes like a dream.”

— Tom Wolfe

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A.L Bardach On Fidel Castro’s life and legacy

 
 

A. L. Bardach spent extensive time interviewing Fidel Castro, other family members, & scores of officials on both sides of Florida Straits ….

 

A Reporter’s Journey inside The Two Cubas

 

Vivekananda and the Birth of the (Old) New Age

A.L. Bardach writings on Swami Vivekananda, the Hindu monk who was the first to introduce meditation to the West in the 1890s.

How Yoga Won the West: New York Times (10/01/2011)

 

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ALB with John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, Public Image.

Gramercy Park Hotel, NYC. 1980 - photo by Marcia Resnick

 

UC Santa Barbara Library Set to Acquire A.L. Bardach’s Archive

What do Fidel Castro, Sid Vicious, JonBenet Ramsey, Larry Rivers, William Burroughs and Benazir Bhutto have in common? They are all subjects of award-winning American journalist Ann Louise Bardach (known to friends and her former students at UCSB as simply Annie). In 2018, the UCSB Library Department of Special Research Collections acquired Bardach’s research files, documenting her career in journalism, as well as four books she authored or edited between 1979 and 2018.

 

A. L. Bardach featured in HBO documentary 537 Votes…

… which chronicles the political machinations that led to the unprecedented, contested outcome of the 2000 presidential election, including the chaotic voter recount in Florida that ended with George W. Bush winning by a razor-thin margin.


“Beg, borrow, or steal a copy of Carpinteria journalist A.L. Bardach’s new piece exposing “Lifestyles of the Rich and the Parched” in poor Montecito.”

Santa Barbara Independent

“Ann Louise Bardach has spent fifteen years in relentless pursuit of the island nation, its dictator, its exiles, and their secrets…she is widely considered the go-to journalist on all things Cuban and Miami.”

Columbia Journalism Review

“Bardach, a journalist, skillfully takes the reader back and forth between Havana and Miami, exposing the intricate webs of intrigue, spying, and violence that characterize Cuban politics on both sides of the Florida Strait.”

Foreign Affairs