Interview: Kim Barker On “The Taliban Shuffle”— Her Candid And Witty Memoir

Kim Barker in Khost police truck: Photo by Kuni Takahashi

By Pamela Burke

Kim’s ProPublica Article
on BP Oil Spill–4/13/11
Twitter: Kim_Barker

Kim Barker chronicles her exciting career as a foreign correspondent doing “The Taliban Shuffle” between Afghanistan and Pakistan in a new book published this week.   If you like insightful and darkly funny tales of modern warfare, this is the book for you.

“You have to weigh the benefits with the potential for danger. It was always worth it.”   Kim

As South Asia Bureau Chief for the Chicago Tribune, Kim was based in this volatile region for five years from 2004-2009.    With a self-described wicked sense of humor, she gives an insider’s view of the horror, adsurdities, and realities of her life as an intrepid reporter who grew to love her war zones.

It is a brutally honest book  for those who want a no holds barred account of a reporter’s life in this infinitely complex region.  Once I read it,  I couldn’t wait to talk to Kim, an incomparable adventure junkie, whose opening line is “I had always wanted to meet a warlord.”