Book Talk: Lyse Doucet — The Finest Hotel in Kabul - with Eric Weiner

Watch author Lyse Doucet's book talk and reading at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.

When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan's first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world.

More than fifty years on, the Inter-Continental is still standing. It has endured Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a grievous civil war, a US invasion and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. History lives within its scarred windows and walls.

Lyse Doucet, the BBC's Chief International Correspondent, has been checking into the Inter-Continental since 1988. And here, she uses its story to craft a richly immersive history of modern Afghanistan.

It is the story of Hazrat, the septuagenarian housekeeper who still holds fast to his Inter-Continental training from the hotel's 1970s glory days--an era of haute cuisine and high fashion, when Afghanistan was a kingdom and Kabul was the 'Paris of Asia'. It is the story of Abida, who became the first female chef to cook in the Inter-Con's famous kitchen after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. And it is the story of Malalai and Sadeq, the twenty-something staff who seized every opportunity offered by two decades of fragile democracy--only to witness the Taliban roaring back in 2021.

The result is a remarkably vivid history of how Afghans have survived a half century of destruction and disruption. It is the story of a hotel but also the story of a people.

Lyse Doucet is a Canadian journalist and the BBC's Chief International Correspondent. In the course of a career spanning four decades, she has reported from countries around the world and was based as a correspondent in Jerusalem, Amman, Islamabad, Kabul, and Abidjan. She has led the BBC's coverage of major events including the recent Iran-Israel war, the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, and the Syrian Civil War. She received an OBE in the Queen's Honours list in 2014, and was admitted to the Order of Canada in 2019. Her latest awards in the U.S. include the 2024 Zenger Award for Press Freedom from the University of Arizona, and the 2018 Trailblazer Award from Georgetown University. She was a recipient of the Colombia School of Journalism Award in 2016, an Emmy in 2014 for her team’s reporting from Syria, and Peabody Awards for her work from Syria and Afghanistan. In 2021, she was nominated for a Peabody for her work as a writer and reporter on the BBC podcast Afghanistan: Documenting A Crucial Year. Doucet has twenty honorary doctorates from leading British and Canadian Universities. She has a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Toronto, and a BA Hons. from Queen’s University in Kingston. She is also a senior fellow of Massey College of the University of Toronto. Doucet has been reporting on Afghanistan since 1988. She visits the Inter-Continental whenever she is in Kabul.

Doucet is in conversation with Eric Weiner, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Geography of Bliss and The Geography of Genius, as well as the critically acclaimed Man Seeks God, The Socrates Express and, his latest book, Ben & Me. A former foreign correspondent for NPR, his work has appeared in The Atlantic, National Geographic, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. He regularly leads writing workshops in Bhutan. He lives with his family and a menagerie of animals in Silver Spring, MD. For more information, visit: EricWeinerBooks.com.

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