Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Originally published as: The Taliban Shuffle
Kim Barker, 2011
Knopf Doubleday
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101973127
Summary
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. (From the publisher.)
See the 2016 film with Tina Fey and Margot Robbie.
Listen to our Movies Meet Book Club Podcast as Hollister and O'Toole discuss the movie and book.
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1969-70
• Where—Billings, Montana, USA
• Education—B.A., Northwestern University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Kim Barker is an American memoirist and journalist, best known for The Taliban Shuffle—later titled Whiskey Tango Foxtrot after the 2016 film adaptation by Tina Fey. The book recounts her time as Chicago Tribune war correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Barker was born in Montana, living in Billings until 13 when her family moved. She attended Northwestern University, earning her B.A. in journalism. Working the Chicago Tribune metro desk during the 9/11 attack, she decided to ask for an overseas assignment. Up to that point, she had made only a couple of overseas trips as a reporter, and the most danger she'd experienced had been misreading a map and finding herself at the head of a fast-moving forest fire—a background which didn't exactly prepare her for the rigors of working in the world's war zones.
Yet as she told the paper's foreign editor, "I am single and I have no children, therefore I'm expendable, and I'll go anywhere you want"...which is how she eventually became the paper's South Asian Bureau chief, interviewing Afghan warlords and evading suicide bombs. Despite the danger—or perhaps because of it—Barker admits to never having felt more alive then when she was close to death. As she told The Missoulian:
[T]here's something about being there, in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, where I felt like everything mattered. It just all seemed so important. All of our conversations revolved around world affairs, and this war, and what should be done in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Everything was just covered in this idea that this was vital, what's happening over here...and that you were writing history.
During the time of her coverage (2004-2009), Barker developed a deep affection for Afghanistan, which she points out is similar in many ways—with its mountains and rural lifestyle—to the beauty and hardiness of Montana. As much as she was drawn to the region and its people, however, she left once she realized that by continuing as a war correspondent, she risked becoming a "war hack." Barker now works for the New York Times.
Read Vanity Fair about what it feels like for Barker to have Tina Fey play her in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
Book Reviews
Remarkable.... [Barker] has written an account of her experiences covering Afghanistan and Pakistan that manages to be hilarious and harrowing, witty and illuminating, all at the same time.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
[An] immensely entertaining memoir.
Boston Globe
[P]art war memoir, part tale of self-discovery that, thanks to Barker’s biting honesty and wry wit, manages to be both hilarious and heartbreaking.
Chicago Tribune
What you’d hear if the reporter never turned off the voice recorder between interviews—brilliant firsthand outtakes that wind up telling us more about the Afghan debacle than any foreign policy briefing.
Seattle Times
At once funny and harrowing, insightful and appalling.... [The book] will pull you in so deep that you’ll smell the poppies and quake from the bombs.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
If you’re looking for a window on the challenges facing Afghanistan and Pakistan today—from a resurgent Taliban to American incompetence to Afghan and Pakistani corruption and nepotism—Barker provides a sterling vantage point.
San Francisco Chronicle
[A]n insider’s perspective of Afghanistan and Pakistan—their fascinating cultures, unstable governments, and burgeoning terrorist groups.... With dark, self-deprecating humor and shrewd insight, Barker chronicles her experiences as a rookie foreign reporter and the critical years when the Taliban resurged amidst the collapse of the Afghan and Pakistani. governments.
Daily Beast
Reveals many enduring truths.... Novel both for its humor and for its perspective...it rises (or sinks) to levels of seriousness that will be remembered long after the po-faced analysis of other writers has been forgotten.
National
Brilliant, tender, and unexpectedly hilarious.
Marie Claire
Candid and darkly comic.... With self-deprecation and a keen eye for the absurd, Barker describes her evolution from a green, fill-in correspondent to an adrenaline junkie.
Publishers Weekly
Politically astute and clearly influenced by Hunter S. Thompson, Barker provides sharp commentary on the impotence of American foreign policy in South Asia after the victory against the Taliban.... Fierce, funny and unflinchingly honest.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
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