Kim Barker, former South Asia bureau chief for The Chicago Tribune and author of The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan, will speak at Northern Michigan University. Her talk is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 22, in the University Center Great Lakes Rooms. Admission is free for NMU students and $2 for the general public.

Barker directed the newspaper’s coverage of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. Paramount Pictures’ Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, a film adaptation of Barker’s book starring Tina Fey, will be in theaters March 4.

The Taliban Shuffle is a darkly comic memoir that offers an insider’s account of the region’s “forgotten war” at a time when all eyes were turned to Iraq. Barker shares accounts ranging from tea with warlords in the countryside to parties with drunken foreign correspondents in the “dry” city of Kabul. She also shares both her affection for the absurdities of these two hapless countries and her fear for their future stability.

Platform Personalities and the Student Activity Fee sponsor this event.