5:00 p.m. / Wednesday, October 1 / Free
UCSB Campbell Hall

Anita Pratap, award-winning Indian journalist and former New Delhi Bureau Chief for CNN, discusses her widely acclaimed book, Island of Blood: Frontline Reports from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Other South Asian Flashpoints. Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, copies of Island of Blood will be available for purchase and signing at this event.

Description:

Island of Blood is a distillation of the experiences and insights of one of the finest journalists India has ever produced. During the eighties and nineties, when the Indian media rarely ventured into flashpoints like Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, Anita Pratap braved the odds to send in reports from the front, over and over again. War, ethnic conflict, earthquakes, cyclones and droughts, wherever there was a story to be told, she would track it down. First in India, then in Sri Lanka, Pratap managed to gain access to LTTE chief Pirabhakaran, and her interviews with him made headlines around the world. In Afghanistan, she eluded the Taliban militia to discover the frightening reality of women's lives under a terrifyingly fanatical regime.

Wherever she went, Ratap saw and faithfully reported the consequences of racial and historical prejudice, religious and sexual discrimination, and mindless hatred and fear. And each time, she returned to the comfort of home and family with a renewed determination to appreciate and celebrate the ordinary.

A personalized narrative that moves between the present and the past, Island of Blood is the memoir of a war correspondent that juxtaposes the experience of war and suffering with the blessed ordinariness of daily life, allowing the reader to see each in the context of the other. The book is particularly relevant in the aftermath of the attacks on America, and the renewed interest in the psyche of terrorism.

About the Author:

Anita Pratap has worked for leading Indian and American newspapers and magazines including Sunday, Indian Express, India Today, and Time. Until 1999, she was the New Delhi Bureau Chief for CNN. Pratap has received numerous awards for her work including the American George Polk Award in 1997 for excellence in television reporting for coverage of the Taliban takeover of Kabul, the Eminent Indian Award conferred by the Indo-American society in 1997, and the Chameli Devi Jain Award in 1998 for her “sensitive portrayal of the human condition” and for her “talent, dedication and courage as a reporter.” She has also won all three nominations in the television news category for the Pinnacle Award for her stories on Kashmir, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan.

In addition to covering hardcore breaking news, Pratap has also reported on issues such as population, education, health care, poverty, children, women, history and culture. Pratap is currently freelancing, making television documentary movies, and writing columns for magazines.

The “Global Forces in the Post-Cold War World” Lecture Series is cosponsored by UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, UCSB Arts & Lectures, Global and International Studies Program, and Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. It is put on in partnership with the Santa Barbara Committee on Foreign Relations, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, PAX 2100, International Studies Association at Santa Barbara City College, and the International Studies Program at Ventura College.

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