As a young girl in a working-class neighborhood of Sydney, Australia, Geraldine Brooks longed to discover the places where history happens and culture comes from, so she enlisted pen pals who offered her a window on adolescence in the Middle East, Europe, and America. Twenty years later Brooks, an award-winning foreign correspondent, embarked on a human treasure hunt to find her pen friends. She found men and women whose lives had been shaped by war and hatred, by fame and notoriety, and by the ravages of mental illness. Intimate, moving, and often humorous, Foreign Correspondence speaks to the unquiet heart of every girl who has ever yearned to become a woman of the world.

作为澳大利亚悉尼工人阶级社区的一个小女孩，杰拉尔丁-布鲁克斯渴望发现历史的发生地和文化的发源地，因此她征集了笔友，这些笔友为她提供了一个了解中东、欧洲和美国青春期的窗口。20年后，布鲁克斯，一位获奖的外国记者，开始了寻找她的笔友的人类寻宝之旅。她找到了那些因战争和仇恨、因名声和恶名以及因精神疾病的摧残而改变生活的男人和女人。外国通信》亲切、感人，而且常常是幽默的，它向每一个曾经渴望成为世界女性的女孩的不平静的心说话。