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From tea with warlords in the countryside to parties with drunken foreign correspondents in the “dry” city of Kabul, journalist Kim Barker captures the humor and heartbreak of life in post-9/11 Afghanistan and Pakistan in this profound and darkly comic memoir. As Barker grows from awkward newbie to seasoned reporter, she offers an insider’s account of the region’s “forgotten war” at a time when all eyes were turned to Iraq. Candid, self-deprecating, and laugh-out-loud funny, Barker shares both her affection for the absurdities of these two hapless countries and her fear for their future stability.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 22, 2011 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780307881168
- File size: 285165 KB
- Duration: 09:54:05
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Barker offers an insider's account of the "forgotten war" in Afghanistan and Pakistan as she chronicles the years after the initial routing of the Taliban by the U.S. Narrator Kirsten Potter captures the author's sarcastic tone perfectly in this candid and darkly comic account of Barker's experience as the South Asia bureau chief for the CHICAGO TRIBUNE from 2004 to 2009. Barker is candid, self-deprecating, and hilarious as she details her arrival in Afghanistan as an awkward newcomer. There she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about the ability of the West to win hearts and minds in the region. Swift, funny, and wholly original, Barker's account unforgettably captures the absurdities and tragedies of life in a war zone. B.C.E. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine -
November 29, 2010
Barker, a journalist for ProPublica, offers a candid and darkly comic account of her eight years as an international correspondent for the Chicago Tribune in Afghanistan and Pakistan, beginning shortly after September 11. With self-deprecation and a keen eye for the absurd, Barker describes her evolution from a green, fill-in correspondent to an adrenaline junkie who gets hit on by Nawaz Sharif, former Pakistani prime minister, and becomes adept in "how to find money in a war zone, how to flatter a warlord, how to cover a suicide bombing, how to jump-start a car using a cord and a metal ladder." Barker reveals how profoundly the U.S. continues to get Afghanistan wrong—that American personnel in the country live in a bubble, rarely dealing with Afghans, that they trample on local customs by getting routinely and "staggeringly" drunk despite Islam's prohibition of alcohol, and throw offensive costume parties at the Department for International Development (DFID). In equal measure, Barker elucidates the deep political ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the U.S.'s role in today's "whiplash between secularism and extremism," and blasts Pakistan's leaders for destroying their nation through endless coups and power jockeying.
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