A Burqa and a Hard Place
Cooper, Sally

RRP
A$32.95

Burqas, car bombs, and Bombay Sapphire - welcome to life in post-Taliban Kabul from the viewpoint of Sally Cooper, an Australian journalist and aid worker who took a job training journalists for a United Nations humanitarian news agency.

When she arrived in Afghanistan, Sally knew next to nothing about the country. Once in Kabul, she moved into the Karwan Sara guesthouse - and quickly met a cast of characters that drew her into the strange realities of life in "the Ghan".

Some of the many questions posed include: What do you do when you discover your male hotel cleaner wearing your clothes? How do you blend into the background at a Friday night dog fight when you're the only woman there - and you're a blonde Westerner? Under what circumstances do you decide that wearing a burqa is for your own protection? How do you live and work in a place where the car next to yours at the traffic lights could be driven by a suicide bomber?

Irreverent, action-packed, witty and at times wildly surreal, A Burqa and a Hard Place will tell you more about daily life in Afghanistan than anything you've ever seen on the nightly news.

Author Information

Sally Cooper grew up in Australia. After a career as a producer and journalist with ABC Radio in Sydney, she travelled to Africa, working on radio projects in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. In 2004, she joined the United Nations, training local journalists for the United Nations IRIN news agency.