Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: strange days in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: strange days in Afghanistan and Pakistan

by KimBarker (Author)

Synopsis

Kim Barker is not your typical foreign correspondent. Raised in Montana, at thirty she had barely been overseas, spoke only English, and knew little about Islam and even less about Osama Bin Laden. But none of that would stop her from heading to Afghanistan and Pakistan to cover the fallout from 9/11. When she arrives, Kim makes all sorts of mistakes - from eating toxic sushi, to forgetting her money on her first trip to Kabul - but soon she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter, with grave concerns about the ability of US might to win hearts and minds in the region. As she moves between conflict zones, Kim offers a close-up account of the war, and of the people at its heart, finding humour and humanity amid the rubble and the heartbreak. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot captures the absurdity and tragedy of our modern wars, and gives us an unlikely but unforgettable heroine for our times.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Edition: film tie-in edition
Publisher: Scribe UK
Published: 14 Apr 2016

ISBN 10: 1925228827
ISBN 13: 9781925228823

Media Reviews
'Kim Barker gives a true and amusing picture of hellholes and the reporters on assignment in them. But she breaks the journo code of silence and reveals a trade secret of the hacks who cover hellholes: The hell of the holes is that they're kind of fun.' -- P. J. O'Rourke 'Kim Barker is 'a sort of Tina Fey character, who unexpectedly finds herself addicted to the adrenaline rush of war ... [She has] discovered a voice ... that enables her to capture both the serious and the seriously absurd conditions in Af-Pak, and the surreal deal of being a female reporter there ... hilarious and harrowing, witty and illuminating, all at the same time.' -- Michiko Kakutani The New York Times 'Multilayered and darkly comic.' Sunday Times 'Part war memoir, part tale of self-discovery that, thanks to Barker's biting honesty and wry wit [it] manages to be both hilarious and heartbreaking.' -- Heidi Stevens Chicago Tribune 'Witty, brilliant, and impossible to put down. Think P. J. O'Rourke meets Paul Theroux. Who knew war could be so funny?' -- Rajiv Chandrasekaran 'Laugh-out-loud funny, it is the true story of what it is like to be a female journalist in one of the world's most exotic war zones, while telling the reader much about what is really going on today in Afghanistan and Pakistan.' -- Peter Bergen 'Ms Barker offers this world - the human world caught in the crosshairs of history - with a vitality rarely seen in accounts of the war. A compelling read that offers readers a glimpse of the goings-on behind the byline.' -- J. Maarten Troost 'Fierce, funny, and unflinchingly honest.' Kirkus Review
Author Bio
Kim Barker grew up in Montana, Wyoming, and Oregon, and graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism. She worked at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, for four years, and The Seattle Times for two years, winning awards for her investigative reporting. In 2001, at age 30, she joined the Chicago Tribune, and began making reporting trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan the next year. Barker was the Tribune's South Asia bureau chief from 2004 to 2009. She was then awarded the Council on Foreign Relations' Edward R. Murrow press fellowship to study Afghanistan and Pakistan. She now lives in New York City, where she works as a reporter at ProPublica.