Lyse Doucet OBE

Lyse Doucet OBE is an award winning Chief International Correspondent and Senior Presenter for BBC World News television and BBC World Service Radio. She is regularly deployed to anchor special news coverage from the field and interview world leaders. Lyse also reports across the BBC including for BBC Newsnight.

She played a key role in the BBC’s coverage of the “Arab Spring” across the Middle East and North Africa and has covered all the major stories in the region for the past 20 years. She is a regular visitor to Afghanistan and Pakistan from where she has been reporting since 1988.

Her work has also focused on major natural disasters including the Indian Ocean tsunami, and more recently Pakistan floods. Before joining the BBC’s team of presenters in 1999, Lyse spent 15 years as a BBC foreign correspondent with postings in Jerusalem, Amman, Tehran, Islamabad, Kabul and Abidjan.

Her latest book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, tells the story of Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel. When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising 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 OBE has been checking into the Inter- Continental since 1988. And in this new book, she uses its story to craft a richly immersive history of modern Afghanistan.