Sasha Barbagat

But I'd like to start off with something that people might not know about you.

What is something that you'd like to be remembered for outside of your work?

Yeah, absolutely.

Look, you were one of six children born in Canada.

What was life like for you growing up?

I'm a city girl for sure.

But, you know, I had grandparents who lived rurally and I can definitely identify with that idea of smaller roots and smaller beginnings.

Do you still have roots in that same place?

Well, that must be quite, well, maybe difficult's the wrong word, but you, I'm guessing, live your life out of a suitcase a lot of the time.

I mean, you might want to put a percentage on it, but has the definition of home for you changed with your job?

Have you had to find home in things outside of permanent residence or somewhere that you can put your bag down and say, this is my place?

Well, maybe that's the perfect segue to your book called The Finest Hotel in Kabul, which is unique in some ways, well, in a lot of ways, but in one way that stood out to me was that you might pick it up thinking it's a memoir, but you speak about yourself very little in the actual book.

It's about...

the hotel and what it's borne witness to.

Tell us about the writing process of, you know, coming up with that idea, but then also choosing the intercontinental in Kabul, in Afghanistan as effectively the main character.

What you described there with the bellhops continuing their work, the waiters waiting and then, you know, the housekeepers keeping house was obviously literal, but also it feels like it's symbolic of what happens for people who live in a war zone.

How does that resonate with you in terms of how, you know, we here in the West are so far removed, we have a certain perception of what a war zone might be like, but through your story and through the story of the Intercontinental, you know, it's proof that things keep happening, but people also have to, you know, it's...

Sorry, I'm going in circles.

No, I love your questions.

You not only report during conflicts themselves, but you also stay long after the rest of the reporters and cameras have moved out of the space.