Critics crueller than Taleban

16 Dec, 2001 07:59 AM2 mins to read

In her book Yvonne Ridley says Western intelligence agencies conspired to have her killed as a spy by the Taleban to drum up public support for the war.

The claim is based on a file of doctored personal papers, which she says her Taleban captors received within days of capturing her.

It has been treated sceptically by rival British media, but a panel of BBC reviewers agreed it certainly added drama to a compelling but sloppily written book.

Their comments, on last week's BBC Newsnight arts programme, included the following:

Mark Lawson (host): She wrote it in six days. Does it show?

Tom Paulin (poet): It does. She's got no sense of place. All the Afghans are "flame-haired" or have "emerald eyes".

Lawson: There's a saying in journalism that you need to have a story or a style. She does have an amazing story.

Craig Brown (satirist): I think she has an amazing style. It was one of the great comic masterpieces. If I was making up a joke hack, I'd just copy that book out. She's a great one for cliches - "the mind boggles" and "Afghanistan is a country of contrasts". I thought that was great! She says it took her six days, but [detective writer Georges] Simenon used to write his books in a weekend. What did she do for the remaining four days?

Lawson: The sexual politics is interesting. You do have this interesting paradox about a female reporter from the West going into a place where women can't work. Does she bring any of that out?

Miranda Sawyer (journalist): Yes, she does on occasions. But she obviously has a strong personality and sometimes that overwhelms everything. You often think that whether she was a man or a woman, she would do the same - she's quite bolshie

Lawson: She is far braver than all of us. She went there.

Brown: Of course, but we're not reviewing her case for a Duke of Edinburgh award - we're reviewing her book and it's a terrible, terrible book.

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