Making Soapies in Kabul

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Since writer, producer and actor Trudi-Ann Tierney went to work in Afghanistan television three and a half years ago, her life has read a lot like the script for a soap-opera. Negotiating with the in-house censor, breaking up tribal fights in the writers' room and having actresses quit because their uncle didn't want them to be on TV are among her workaday travails. Then there are the suicide attacks, including a Taliban assault on the US embassy in Kabul that unfolded at the end of her street. 'I've been through six suicide attacks since I've been here, three of them very close,' she says...When she first went to Kabul, with the promise of work, Trudi worked in an illicit bar. Today she is head of drama at Afghanistan's biggest TV broadcaster Moby Media Group, where she oversees about half a dozen programs, including the country's most popular soap Raaz Hai Een Khana (The Secrets of This House). Occasionally as madcap as Catch-22 and as absurd as One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, this is a part-hilarious, part-nail-biting account of a talented TV executive working in a war zone and an environment that is dangerously inimical to women. The author's sense of humour and her love of the Afghan people shines throug