He spent seventeen years as a foreign correspondent based in Africa, writing for magazines like The Village Voice,[2] Newsweek,[3] The New Republic,[4] Harper's,[5] GQ,[6] and The New York Times.
[8] Maren joined the Peace Corps in 1977 and served for two years teaching English and Physics at a secondary school in rural Kenya.
[9][10] He remained in Kenya, running the food-for-work program with the Catholic Relief Services; later he worked for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Somalia, serving as a food assessment specialist on the Somali border with Ethiopia.
[13]Maren chronicled his experiences abroad in his book, The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity, published in 1997 by The Free Press.
He has taught screenwriting at Wesleyan University, The Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and the Taos Writers' Conference.
[16] In 2012, Maren wrote, directed and produced his first feature film, A Short History of Decay, which was described as "a dark comedy about stepping up when your parents are going downhill".