David E. Hoffman is a contributing editor and member of the editorial board of The Washington Post. He was previously assistant managing editor, foreign editor, Jerusalem correspondent, Moscow bureau chief, and White House correspondent for the newspaper. He is the author of several nonfiction books, including The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy, which won the Pulitzer Prize. In Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and His Daring Quest for a Free Cuba (Simon & Schuster), Hoffman offers a portrait of a lone individual with the courage, faith, and persistence to struggle for democracy against an unforgiving dictator. A leading voice of opposition, he founded the Christian Liberation Movement, a pro-democracy movement that called for nonviolent civil disobedience. His most daring challenge to the Cuban government was the Varela Project, a one-page citizen petition demanding, among other rights, free speech, a free press, and free elections. More than 35,000 people signed it. After receiving multiple death threats, on July 22, 2012, Payá died in a suspicious car accident.
