The Emirates called for strengthening the international humanitarian response and providing urgent relief to those in need
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Fans of Christina Lamb thronged at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature to hear her speak. A leading author and British foreign correspondent, Christina was named 'Correspondent of the Year' five times and has reported from all over the world including Pakistan and Afghanistan. "I am excited to attend the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature. I've been at the event before and it is a great place to meet other writers and interact with different audiences," she says in an interview with Khaleej Times.
Speaking about her experience of working with Malala Yousafzai on her book I am Malala, she notes, "It was amazing and I felt very privileged to work with her. She is so passionate about a cause that I also care a lot about, the education of children. She is a very special person. She is very politically committed but also an ordinary teenager. I've spent a lot of time in Pakistan in her area, so it has been great to actually tell her story."
Christina first met Malala in January when she had come out of the hospital. "We then agreed on doing this book in March and it came out in October. So for a period of six months we were going back and forth and I was staying at her house and talking to her. I also talked to her family and friends in the SWAT area," the author adds.
Christina's most recent book Nujeen is about a Syrian refugee. "That's the book that came out late last year. It's about the story of a young girl who has travelled across Europe as a refugee and came from Aleppo in Syria and made her journey to Germany with just her sister, on a wheelchair. I was covering the refugee crisis a lot for my newspaper as a journalist. It is a difficult journey for able-bodied people and I can only imagine how difficult it might have been for somebody who could hardly walk," the author recollects.
Farewell Kabul was really a summation of 28 years of going back and forth to Afghanistan. "It was the first place I went to as a journalist at the age of 21 and that's when the Russians were there. I never imagined at that point in time that I would be back 20 years later with my own country having troops in Afghanistan," she says.
Nujeen will be published in paperback in April. "Then I am busy reporting for the newspapers and will be going to Washington to see what is happening with President Donald Trump and will be going back to Afghanistan," she adds, about her future plans.
Her advice to writers, "Just start writing. Write everyday; write about what you see around you. Everybody has an interesting story, so listen."
- suchitra@khaleejtimes.com
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