Sally Hayden, Award-Winning Journalist and Author
episodePreviously titled “SALLY HAYDEN, AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 8, 2026
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Why did Sally Hayden write 'This is Also a Love Story'?
Thank you very much. or watching the child soldiers of Boko Haram attempting to find forgiveness or redemption, she has been perhaps surprised to find the power of love triumphing again and again over awful vicissitudes. And she's written about some of those uplifting encounters in a new book, which is called This is Also a Love Story, subtitled Searching for Good in a Divided World. Sally Hayden, good morning and welcome.
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
I have to ask you why you wrote the book, because you mentioned that journalists can become a bit inured to violence, inured to death, a bit dehumanized in their own way, such as their exposure to these awful things.
Yeah, so I first had the idea for this book eight years ago now, and it was something that, you know, even after just a few years of being an international reporter, I was struggling myself. I had become kind of... Yeah, I was just seeing so much violence and cruelty, and at the same stage when I reported on crises, I'd also always see love. Like, I see love every day doing this work, and I wanted to kind of... just make sure that that was also being documented. And so the book is a collection of nine different crises, nine different, you know, I call them a kind of love story. It's not just romantic love. It's love for family, love for community. And yeah, just a reminder that even in crisis situations, that love is always present.
And we have to remember that there's a so-called ceasefire going on at the moment between Israel and Lebanon.
What are the themes of love and resilience in crisis situations?
And yet the shooting continues overnight.
Yeah, so I actually left Lebanon on Thursday. And yeah, from what we've seen, fighting is continuing. And yeah, I mean, there's been many ceasefires that I've spoken to you on this show about before. What's happening there is just devastating. It's, you know, impossible to kind of describe the extent of the devastation, you know, both killing but also displacement. And yeah, just people, you know, their lives being destroyed.
Now, later on in the book, there is a chapter dedicated to Lebanon, but it is one of the most extraordinary stories. It's not overtly about love, love, love, but it is about the love of a man for his family who are struggling, even though they have money in the bank. Tell me what happened.
Yeah, this is the story of Bassam, who's a Lebanese man. As people I'm sure know, there was before the current war, there was financial crisis and Lebanon has been through, you know, a massive series of crises.
There was a big explosion as well, which was flour, I think, exploding in a warehouse.
The port explosion. And yeah, what happened was that people's savings, everything that they had in the bank was seized or, you know, they just couldn't access it.
How does the current situation in Lebanon impact personal stories?
Yeah, I mean, it was there ostensibly, although maybe it wasn't. That's another story. Maybe the money really wasn't there, but nominally they had deposits in the bank.
Yeah. And so Bassam, his father needed medical care. His father had Alzheimer's and was very fragile and needed, you know, he fell and broke bones and he needed medical care. And Bassam needed money. And so he decided that he was going to raid the bank. And he went, he took a gun and a gallon of gasoline and went into a bank in Beirut and basically carried out a hostage situation where he said, I'm not going. I'm not letting these bank employees go until I get my money. And the strange thing that happened was that the bank became surrounded by supporters who were like, you know, wanted they were like, this is what we all want to do. You know, they were cheering him on. And when he got out or when he left.
He was facing legal ramifications, but he became hailed as a national hero. And there was this big question of like, who's the real bank raider? Is it Bassam or is it the bankers and the politicians?
And there was a flurry of trying to get him his money. And it turned out that they went to all different bank branches and so on. They couldn't find any money for him. They only got bits and pieces.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did Sally Hayden write 'This is Also a Love Story'?
0:00–1:49
2
What are the themes of love and resilience in crisis situations?
1:49–3:06
3
How does the current situation in Lebanon impact personal stories?
3:06–5:00
4
What challenges do couples face during the Ukraine war?
5:00–6:13
5
How do personal relationships survive in wartime conditions?
6:13–7:46
6
What are the stories of love and commitment in Mosul?
7:46–9:49
7
How does the LGBTQI+ community navigate challenges in Ghana?
9:49–11:09
8
What is the significance of family bonds in post-genocide Rwanda?
11:09–13:24