Sarah Chayes
The Punishment of Virtue

Tuesday, September 5 @ 7PM

The Punishment of Virtue is NPR reporter Sarah Chayes’ account of the sobering realities of this first and vital front in the war on terror. Chayes lived in an Afghan home, learned the country's culture and politics, and became expert on the history of Afghanistan's legendary resistance to foreign interference. Chayes forges relationships with the Karzai family, tribal leaders, U.S. military and diplomatic brass, and leading figures in the Kandahar government; she takes her reader into meetings with Hamid Karzai and the corrupt Kandahar governor, Gul Agha Shirzai, into the homes of tribal elders, and onto the U.S. military base. She details the complexities and traumas of Afghanistan’s post-war struggle, revealing how the tribal strongmen who have regained power—after years of being displaced by the Taliban—have visited a renewed plague of corruption and violence on the Afghan people, under the complicit eyes of U.S. forces and officials.

“The most gripping, sensitive, funny, perceptive and beautifully written book you will ever read on Afghanistan, US policy, and nation building... Chayes makes history, politics and war more of a pleasure to read about than anything I have yet read. This is the best book to have come out of Afghanistan since 9/11.” -- Ahmed Rashid

“Engrossing…[Chayes’s] hands-on experience as a deeply immersed reporter ant activist gives her lucid analysis and prescriptions a practical scope and persuasive authority.” --Publishers Weekly

From 1997 to 2002, Sarah Chayes served as an overseas correspondent for NPR, reporting from Paris and the Balkans, as well as covering conflicts in Algeria. In 2002, she left NPR to take a position running a non-governmental aid organization, Afghans for Civil Society, founded by Qayum Karzai. Her work as a correspondent for NPR during the Kosovo crisis earned her the 1999 Foreign Press Club and Sigma Delta Chi awards, together with other members of the NPR team.

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