Choosing the Hero: My Improbable Journey and the Rise of Africa's First Woman President

This 10th anniversary edition of this award-winning book tells one of the most inspiring stories of our time: the rise of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to become President of Liberia and the first woman elected to lead an African nation. But President Sirleaf could not have done it alone; among those who worked tirelessly to help her achieve victory was Washington, D.C.–based international consultant and lobbyist K. Riva Levinson. Choosing the Hero is Levinson’s compelling account of her career and how she joined forces with Sirleaf to fight for a cause bigger than either of them. With gripping anecdotes, Levinson describes her adventures working in high-stakes environments around the globe, from Somalia to Iraq. Yet it is her efforts on behalf of Sirleaf that form the heart of the book, chronicling her behind-the-scenes lobbying for the exiled leader in Washington, D.C., as well as her hands-on work in Liberia. It took three attempts for Sirleaf to finally win the presidency in 2005—she later won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize and oversaw Liberia's first peaceful democratic transition of power in seventy-five years in 2018. Ultimately, Choosing the Hero is an exciting look into the inner workings of the making of U.S. foreign policy, as well as Riva Levinson’s personal journey of finding a hero and fighting for a worthy cause.