Renewable Optimism

Mariane Pearl, the wife of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, resolved to hold onto her sense of hope in the aftermath of her husband's murder at the hands of terrorists in 2002. She wrote a stirring memoir, "A Mighty Heart," later made into a film starring Angelina Jolie, and now she's back with "In Search of Hope." It features 12 profiles (originally written for Glamour magazine) of deeply optimistic women, from a Moroccan cleaning lady in Paris to the president of Liberia, who each labor to heal their cracked patches of earth. She spoke with NEWSWEEK's Tony Dokoupil:

Why did you start this project?
I wanted to show people that there is hope out there. It comes from the actions of individuals like the women in this book. You have suicide bombers who are ready to lose their lives to destroy, but there are also people who are ready to lose their lives to build. Finding those people—that was my quest. It was personal and professional.

What made it personal?
For my son's sake, I really needed to answer the question: Can we spread hope the way others spread fear? How? What are our assets to do that? To me, it's these people.

Do you ever worry that journalism isn't enough?
Yes, of course. But human empathy is way beyond what we imagine, and journalism is a bridge to that empathy. There's also the fact that governments are less likely to attack these women if they are known internationally. So journalism can do a lot, actually.

Why was this book important to you as a parent?
It's not enough to tell my son that there's hope in the world. "But where?" he'll say. With this book, I have proof: this determined individual is the source. The bad news is that you can't shield your child from the darker corners of life, so you have to help them embrace it and combat it. And besides, how could I shield my son from the world? It would be impossible. It would be like trying not to get old.

Why did you choose only women to profile?
Because women get it.