2026 Knowlton Literary Festival

Lyse Doucet  x In conversation with Louise Penny

BBC’s Chief International Correspondent

Saturday October 18, 2024

10h30 - 11h30

Community Centre, 270 Victoria, Knowlton QC

Note: Doors open 15 minutes before event

The Finest Hotel in Kabul is the story of a hotel. And a story of a nation. It is a New York Times Editor' Choice, and has been shortlisted for the 2026 Women's Prize for Non-fiction.

Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, has been checking into the Inter-Continental since 1988. And here, she uses its story to craft a richly immersive history of modern Afghanistan.

When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel symbolized a dream of a modernizing country connected to the world.

More than fifty years on, the Inter-Continental is still standing. It has endured Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a grievous civil war, a US invasion and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. History lives within its scarred windows and walls.

Lyse Doucet, C.M., O.B.E., was born in eastern Canada. She is the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent and a senior presenter who anchors news programs for BBC World TV and World Service Radio. She is regularly deployed to present special news coverage from the field, interview world leaders and report across the BBC’s domestic and global outlets.
Before joining the BBC’s team of presenters in 1999, Lyse spent 15 years as a BBC foreign correspondent with postings in Jerusalem, Amman, Islamabad, Tehran, Kabul and Abidjan. She is a regular visitor to the Middle East and has covered major stories in the region since 1994, when she established the BBC’s office in Amman, Jordan.

Lyse Doucet was awarded an O.B.E. in the Queen’s Honours list in 2014 for her services to broadcasting and the Columbia Journalism Award for lifetime achievement in 2016.

Her most recent awards include, in 2018, the Trailblazer Award from the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and the Change the Culture Award from the Their world education charity. In 2017, she was honoured with the Charles Wheeler Award for Broadcasting by the British Journalism Review, Italy’s Luchetta Award for a report on Syrian children, and the Next Century Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting. In 2016, she received the Sandford St Martin Trustees’ Award for reporting on religious issues, and the One World Media Radio award for a documentary on Afghan women. Earlier honours include an Emmy and a Peabody in the United States in 2014 for her team’s reporting from Syria.

She is a trustee of Inter Mediate, an honorary patron of Canadian Crossroads International and a member of Friends of Aschiana UK, which supports street working children in Afghanistan. She is also a founding member of the Marie Colvin Journalists’ Network and a Senior Fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto. She is a trustee of the Frontline Club for Journalists and a member of the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma. Lyse has eleven honorary doctorates from leading British and Canadian Universities. She has a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Toronto, and a BA Hons from Queen’s University in Kingston.