The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa will host award-winning author, investigative journalist and war reporter Anna Badkhen, who will give a talk on Friday, October 12, at 3:30 p.m. in Kuykendall 410. This event is free and open to the public.
Badkhen’s talk, “The Contemporary Writer on Social Responsibility,” includes a reading from her 2015 book Walking With Abel, a report on the seven months she spent living with a nomadic family of Fulani cattle herders in Mali.
Walking With Abel allows the reader to understand how the culture and society of the largest nomadic ethnic group on earth is being dramatically altered by climate change and the war on terror.
“War is very flashy, bright colors, [it is] very easy to write about,” said Badkhen. “But it’s always the lives of people that matter and it’s to people that we should feel a sense of responsibility.”
Since 2001, Badkhen has been writing about conflicts and war on three continents. Based on her extended stays in remote communities, her essays and dispatches have been published in The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Foreign Policy and elsewhere.
Badkhen is the 2018 recipient of the Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship, which provides several weeks of solitude and support in a quiet environment in Hāna, Maui, where writers can work on a project of their choosing.
This event is presented by the 2018 Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship, Mānoa Foundation, Mānoa: A Pacific Journal, UH Mānoa English Department Creative Writing Program, with additional support provided by Halekulani Corporation.
