Whisky Tango Foxtrot - An Interview with author Kim Barker

Chances are that your first reaction to the new Tina Fey vehicle, Whisky Tango Foxtrot, will be confusion: laughs are scrambled in matters of life and death. But that is the proper mix. The book on which the film is based, The Taliban Shuffle is equally poised between comedy and tragedy. When the volume was first reviewed in 2011, the New York Times wrote that author Kim Barker “portrays herself as a kind of Tina Fey character.” That combination of intelligence and sex appeal is what makes Barker’s account of her experience as a journalist and single woman in Afghanistan so brave and distinctive. The NYTimes review caught the eyes of Fey, who optioned the rights to the book. The film opens tomorrow.
I spoke with Barker and asked her to compare her book with the film, which I had just seen. “It was surreal to find out that my story was going to be played by Tina Fey. I’d ask my friends. ‘Guess who is playing me in the movie: she’s smart and sexy. Immediately they’d say – ‘Tina Fey?’”  READ MORE