Date: 9 March 2023
Time: 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Venue: Fringe Club, 2 Lower Albert Road, Hong Kong
Price: HK$188
For more information on Hong Kong International Literary Festival, click here.
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Italian war reporter and journalist Francesca Borri (Syrian Dust) moved to Kabul after the Taliban takeover in October 2021 and is currently one of a handful of foreign correspondents still left in the war-torn city.
She has traveled throughout the country, sharing her days with the Afghans of Kabul who celebrated freedom and development, and the Afghans outside of Kabul, who were rewarded with violence and misery.
Get an insider’s view of life in a complicated country caught between the Taliban and inteƒrnational sanctions, where the median age is 18.4 years and where the taste of war is still on everyone’s lips.
About Francesca Borri
Francesca Borri, born in Italy in 1980, is a Middle East based war reporter, currently living in Kabul. A specialist in international law, she worked as a human rights adviser in Palestine followed by a switch to journalism in 2012. She has since written for the Columbia Journalism Review, the Guardian, Il Fatto Quotidiano and Il Venerdì di Repubblica.
In 2014 she was shortlisted for the Prix Bayeux-Calvados with a report for Le Monde, and in 2017 she was shortlisted for the European Press Prize for a report from the Maldives, the non-Arab country with the highest per capita number of foreign fighters. She has written and co-authored various books, including Destination Paradise, Exodus, and her next book, The night before. Notes from frontlines, will be out in December 2023.
About Hong Kong International Literary Festival (HKILF)
The annual festival features established and emerging writers from around the world in a programme that includes panel discussions, book talks, literary lunches and dinners, readings, workshops, and performance. HKILF continues to inspire and illuminate Hong Kong readers with innovative programming.
The festival is an acknowledged landmark in the city’s cultural landscape and has brought a distinguished roster of guests to Hong Kong. Past speakers include Margaret Atwood, Seamus Heaney, Amy Tan, Amitav Ghosh, Kevin Kwan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Amor Towles, Damon Galgut, Kai-fu Lee, Adam Grant, Cheryl Strayed, David Sedaris, Junot Diaz, Pico Iyer, Ken Hom, Carol Ann Duffy, Kiran Desai, Ian Rankin, Yann Martel, Hanya Yanagahira and Dinaw Mengestu, among many others.
HKILF is a not-for-profit charitable organisation registered in Hong Kong that advances education and the diffusion of knowledge through literature, and generates enthusiasm for reading and creative writing. HKILF is a well-established and much-loved institution, which has impacted tens of thousands of young people and adults in the last twenty-one years. HKILF was founded in 2001 to celebrate reading and literature in the community and is widely acknowledged as one of Asia and the world’s most notable literary gatherings. Our years of literary programming with schools and prominent venues have helped develop Hong Kong’s position as an international and regionally leading centre for the literary arts.