Nina Willner

Nina Willner (born March 1, 1961) is an American nonfiction author, a former intelligence officer and human rights activist. Her first book Forty Autumns A Family’s Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall (HarperCollins William Morrow, 2016, ISBN 0062410318) is the true story of Willner's own mother's escape from communist East Germany at age 20, the large family she left behind the Iron Curtain, and their four-decade journey to reunite. During the Cold War, as a 22-year old U.S. Army intelligence officer, Nina Willner was sent into the heart of Soviet-controlled East Berlin to lead secret spy missions. Willner uses her personal story to tell the broader story of the Cold War and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, providing a unique and highly readable historical narrative of these incredible events.

Forty Autumns was named “Top 15 Nonfiction Books of 2016” by Christian Science Monitor and Kirkus Reviews praised it as a book that “celebrates the resilience of the human spirit.”

Willner grew up mostly in Northern Virginia. Her father Eddie Willner, an Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor, emigrated to the U.S. after WWII and served a career in the U.S. Army. Her mother, Johanna Willner, is a teacher. Willner has five siblings.

Willner began her career in Berlin. After a career in U.S. intelligence, she worked in the fields of human rights and rule of law, in education and for women’s and children’s charity causes. She has spent three decades living and working for the U.S Government, for non-profits and humanitarian outreach programs in Russia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Germany, Japan, Canada and in Turkey.