Souad Mekhennet gives her memoir of a life in journalism the subtitle ‘My journey behind the lines of Jihad’ – and it certainly is quite a journey. Beginning with her childhood in Frankfurt, a daughter of Moroccan guest workers, she gives a vivid account of the obstacles she had to overcome – racism, her position as an outsider in German society, the expectations placed on her as a female and a Muslim – in order to pursue her chosen profession as a political reporter.
Beginning her career as a freelance for various German newspapers, radio and TV stations, she is now a correspondent for the Washington Post, a position that has taken her to some insanely dangerous places where her background has gained her access usually denied to Western journalists. In Afghanistan and Lebanon, Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia, she has interviewed and written about the individuals at the heart of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS, always aware that each encounter carried with it the possibility of kidnap and murder.
