Sean Carberry is a veteran NPR foreign correspondent, and in his new book he explains how he earned his war correspondent “merit badges.”
In Passport Stamps: Searching the World for a War to Call Home, Carberry lays out his journey, from being a musician to working as a reporter in some of the most dangerous places in the world. He also discusses what drove him from assignment to assignment, despite the ever-present threat of danger.
From 2007 through 2014, Carberry traveled the planet reporting from war zones and fragile states for public radio. He spent time in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Congo, Colombia, Kosovo, Sudan and other rough neighborhoods before settling down in Afghanistan in 2012.
Carberry served as NPR’s Kabul correspondent until the end of 2014, when NPR closed the bureau. He is currently managing editor of National Defense Magazine.
Passport Stamps is described as a candid, darkly comic, and emotionally naked tale of a man who – driven by grief, loss and the desire to find his “tribe” – seeks solace in the world’s most dangerous places and in his quest to join the ranks of combat-tested war correspondents. The learning curve of reporting in hostile environments is steep, sometimes comical, and sometimes nearly fatal. When the assignment ends, Carberry is left to confront the mental and emotional impact of the years of danger, death and destruction.
Guest: Sean Carberry is the author of “Passport Stamps: Searching the World for a War to Call Home” and managing editor for National Defense Magazine. He is also the former Kabul correspondent for NPR. Carberry is an award-winning journalist, writer, and editor. In his more than 15 years as a radio and print journalist, he has traveled to dozens of countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
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*This interview will be recorded on Monday, August 21.
