Serge Schmemann


Serge Schmemann is a writer and editorial page editor of the International Herald Tribune, the global edition of the New York Times. Earlier in his career, he worked for the Associated Press and was a bureau chief and editor for the New York Times.

Life and career

Born in France, the son of Alexander Schmemann and Juliana Ossorguine, he moved to the United States as a child, in 1951. He grew up speaking Russian at home, but visited his ancestral homeland for the first time only in 1980 when he arrived with his family as Moscow correspondent for the Associated Press. It was not until 1990 that the Soviet authorities allowed him to visit his grandparents' home village near Kaluga. His reflections on the village's changing fate provided the subject matter for his memoirs, published in 1997.
Writing for The New York Times, he won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1991 for his coverage of the reunification of Germany, which he also made the subject of a book. The September 12, 2001 New York Times featured a front-page article by Schmemann about the September 11 attacks. He won an Emmy Award in 2003 for the Discovery Channel documentary Mortal Enemies.
Schmemann has three children and lives in Paris.

Awards