MELODY NIXON interviews MASHA HAMILTON
Last month Masha Hamilton published her fifth novel, What Changes Everything, while working around the clock as the Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Against a background of suicide bomb attacks and early Fourth of July celebrations in Kabul, Masha talked to Melody Nixon long-distance about Afghanistan, storytelling as a human right, and the delicate act of writing in a war zone.
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Melody Nixon (MN): Can you describe to me what is outside your window right now?
Masha Hamilton (MH): It’s nighttime here, it’s dark. Outside my window there’s a big tent where we’ll be gathered tomorrow with our Afghan colleagues, and partners, to mark an early Independence Day. Now it’s fairly quiet, but sometimes I do hear helicopters flying low overhead. There’s not a lot of green on the compound, but right outside my window there is a bit of lawn, which I’m very grateful for. In the distance you can see the beginnings of the Hindu Kush mountain range, beyond Kabul.
My family eats a Long Island diner breakfast every Saturday morning. We say hi to our neighbor, Lucille, who waits tables; our toddler jabs at the jukebox as my husband orders the Hungry Man; we try to ignore the flat-screen on the wall, which is unfailingly tuned to Fox News. Luckily, there’s good eavesdropping to be done. What we overhear from nearby tables usually beats Sarah Palin stumping for the flat tax.
