Down the Rabbit Hole

This event is organised by Granta.

In the new issue of Granta magazine, themed Betrayal, veteran war reporter Janine di Giovanni writes of her recent trip to Syria, the people she encountered there and their stories of life in a country torn apart. Janine di Giovanni has reported on more than a dozen wars for nearly twenty years. She is an award-winning reporter and author, and the former president of the Jury of the Prix Bayeux for war reporters. Her latest book is Ghosts by Daylight: A Memoir of War and Love. ‘Seven Days in Syria’ was supported by funding from The Nation Institute.

She is joined by Frances Harrison who lived in Sri Lanka for 4 years, working as BBC Correspondent and Bureau Chief. She is one of few Western journalists to have travelled extensively in the war zone reporting on the Tamil Tigers during the peace process and one of only a handful of outsiders still in touch by telephone with people inside the conflict area at the height of the fighting in 2009. For many years she worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC posted in South Asia, South East Asia and Iran. She has worked at Amnesty International as Head of News and while writing Still Counting the Dead – her acclaimed book about the Sri Lanka conflict – she was a visiting research fellow at Oxford University.

With readings and conversation focused on the Syrian and Sri Lankan conflicts moderated by Granta deputy editor Ellah Allfrey, this event explores the ethics of venturing into war zones, the line between truth and fiction and how to tell the stories of war.