SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--He’s a hero to millions worldwide. He’s raised vast sums of money in the name of fighting terrorism through education. He’s written two blockbuster books about his humanitarian work. He is also, sadly, not what he appears to be.
Three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greg Mortenson, the author of the bestsellers Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools and founder of the revered charity organization Central Asia Institute, has built a global reputation around his efforts to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since 1996, the Central Asia Institute has raised more than $60 million from supporters who have read Mortenson’s books and been captivated by his cause. But the stunning truth, reports Jon Krakauer, is that Mortenson has misused millions of dollars of donations and has lied about important aspects of his work.
In Three Cups of Deceit, the debut story being released today in digital form by Byliner Inc., a new publishing company specializing in narrative journalism, Jon Krakauer tells the full tale of the scandal first revealed on “60 Minutes” last night, April 17. Krakauer, an acclaimed reporter and the author of the bestsellers Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, and Where Men Win Glory, was himself a longtime Mortenson supporter who donated more than $75,000 to the Central Asia Institute. In 2004, however, troubled by high turnover on the CAI board and Mortenson’s lack of accountability, Krakauer ended his association with the organization. He wasn’t alone in his disenchantment. As a former CAI board treasurer told him, “Greg regards CAI as his personal ATM.”
In the spring of 2010, Krakauer belatedly got around to reading Three Cups of Tea. As he made his way through the book, he became increasingly skeptical about its veracity, and decided to look into some of Mortenson’s more implausible claims. His dogged, far-ranging investigation unearthed multiple layers of deception. He discovered that many of the anecdotes in Mortenson’s books—which Mortenson repeats again and again in his sold-out lectures around the world—are outright fiction, including his popular account of being held hostage for eight days by the Taliban. Worse, Mortenson has grossly misused CAI funds. In addition to refusing to account for millions of dollars spent in the field on CAI business, Mortenson continues to bill expenses related to his speaking engagements (including chartered jets and deluxe hotels) to CAI, which receives no royalties from Mortenson’s bestsellers. For accounting purposes, CAI reports these vast sums as “program expenses,” giving donors the impression that a high percentage of their money is going to the construction and staffing of CAI’s schools.
The schools are perhaps the saddest news of all. Mortenson has long insisted that CAI schools are built in terrorist strongholds and are therefore a powerful tool to promote peace and fight poverty. In reality, most CAI schools are located in relatively quiet corners of Afghanistan and Pakistan, far from terrorist activity. Moreover, many of the schools Mortenson says he has built do not exist, and a number of others stand empty due to a lack of staffing or students, often both.
“Mortenson started with noble intentions and a great idea,” says Krakauer. “He has built dozens of schools that have educated thousands of kids in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He deserves credit for that. But very soon after he launched CAI, he lost his moral bearings. He betrayed the trust of countless people, including myself. I’d like to support CAI again someday, when it’s under different leadership. That part of the world needs all the effective help it can get. But with Mortenson running things, the organization went badly off the rails.”
Byliner, Inc. is a new digital publishing company and website co-founded by John Tayman, Ted Barnett, and Mark Bryant. As editor of Outside magazine in the 1990s, Bryant published the magazine articles that would become Krakauer’s first bestsellers, Into The Wild and Into Thin Air. “Jon and I have worked together for many years,” says Bryant. “But it was always in the context of magazines. Byliner allows us to get a complex, newsworthy story like this out carefully but swiftly, to a very large audience, without the delay of printing.”
At Krakauer’s request, Three Cups of Deceit will be available as a free, downloadable PDF through Byliner.com for 72 hours. After that, the story will be sold as a Kindle Single for $2.99. All of Krakauer’s proceeds from the sale of Three Cups of Deceit will be donated to the STOP Girl Trafficking program at the American Himalayan Foundation. (www.himalayanfoundation.org/live/project/stopgirltrafficking).
As exemplified by Jon Krakauer’s Three Cups of Deceit, Byliner Originals publishes works of compelling nonfiction, by great writers, that can be easily read in a single sitting. Byliner.com, which will have its more formal launch in early May, combines curated archives of the best nonfiction writers’ work with personalized recommendations, social bookmarking, and aggregated discussion—thus allowing fans of great storytelling to easily find, share, and discuss new and classic work by their favorite authors.
Jon Krakauer is the author of Eiger Dreams, Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, Under the Banner of Heaven, and Where Men Win Glory. He is also the editor of the Modern Library Exploration series.
For more information or to schedule interviews about Three Cups of Deceit please contact Clare Hertel at clare@clarehertelcommunications.com; 505-474-6783. For interviews about Byliner, Inc. contact Marlene Saritzky at marlene@mssassociates.com; 415-713-1241.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6688392&lang=en