Absurdistan

9780732279806

0732279801

As a foreign correspondent for the ABC, Eric Campbell covered Boris Yeltsin's drunken demise in Russia, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and the public madness in Britain following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. He's been arrested, drugged, robbed, stoned by the Taliban, threatened with expulsion from China and thrown into a variety of tricky situations, such as eating a sheep's head (while hung over) in Afghanistan. In 2003, while covering the war in Iraq, he was wounded in a suicide bombing which killed his cameraman and friend, Paul Moran. Absuridstan documents the highs and lows of being a reporter in some of the strangest, most dysfunctional places on Earth while juggling life, love, friendship and fatherhood. This is not a standard journalistic memoir but an irreverent, rollicking read that takes you into nighclubs as well as war zones, behind the scenes of grassroots revolution and into centres of power.