Darya’s fate
Today is International Women’s Day and I dedicate today to Darya, the heroine opium bride in Opium Nation. I found Darya after nine years of searching. She was 12 when I met her. She asked me to help save her from a forced marriage to a 46-year-old drug smuggler. She’s now 21. My book needs a new ending but until …
Read MoreReflections of a year on book tour
From New York to Los Angeles, Seattle to Phoenix, to the nation’s capital, I stood before Americans for the last year and told the story of Afghanistan’s drug trade, the story of its women, its drug lords, its heroes and criminals. I told my own story of an exile returning to my homeland, traveling in the region for seven years …
Read MoreThe dangers of traveling through Afghanistan’s drug trail
For five years, I traveled on the bumpy roads of Afghanistan discovering the underworld of the illicit narcotics trade. I had many close calls with death, mostly having to do with bad drivers and bombed out highways, but I survived to write my book Opium Nation, just released by HarperPerennial. My biggest fear was not being killed, but being kidnapped …
Read More