[2] Her book on the Nicaraguan Revolution, according to the Wall Street Journal, “may stand as the definitive account of the fall of Anastasio Somoza and the rise of the Sandinistas.”[3] She is also the author of the 2004 history Before Lewis and Clark: The Story of the Chouteaus, the French Dynasty That Ruled America's Frontier.
[10] She went on to work as the AP’s United Nations correspondent and as an editor at its Foreign and World Desk before deciding to concentrate her reporting on Latin America.
In 1980, Christian joined the Latin America Bureau for the Miami Herald and began reporting on the Central American crisis, the political turmoil that was sweeping across Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.
[12] She won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting “for her dispatches from Central America.” The jury stated, “She displays a superb eye for detail, and combines great writing skill with her obvious expertise on the complex and bewildering problems that bedevil the region.”[13] She lived in Latin America for 20 years, rising to become the New York Times Bureau Chief for Argentina.
"[17] The New York Times reviewer wrote: “After so much ideological fever, so many boring meetings and flat ephemeral pamphlets, it is marvelous to find a book that spends most of its considerable length just telling us what actually happened.”[18] Before Lewis and Clark: The Story of the Chouteaus, the French Dynasty That Ruled America's Frontier Christian’s 2004 book, Before Lewis and Clark, tells the story of the American West before the famous expedition that begins many of the region’s histories.