Lost in Transmission

Review by Philip Blazdell

'I grew up with lessons of Australian men as hardy, practical types, strong and stoic. They went off to war for years in jungles and deserts, and never had the need or time to talk about it when they came home. I haven't even fought a war; merely skirted its edges. But if...the soul can only travel at camel's speed, then mine has a lot of catching up to do.'

When Jonathan Harley is finally offered his dream job as a foreign correspondent, he is suddenly no longer so sure he wants it. He's just fallen in love, hard. But he can't pass up the chance of becoming the ABC's man in South Asia - and the adventure of a lifetime. "Lost in Transmission" is his profoundly moving, and often funny, account of his time in Asia and the world-changing events that he experiences and how these ultimately make him see life from a different perspective.

As he finds - and often fumbles - his way around his new beat, from his base in New Delhi, across the wilds of India to Pakistan, Nepal to Afghanistan and beyond to Iraq, Harley shares the misadventures, both hilarious and terrifying. As might be expected from a journalist of some repute, writes wonderfully. But it is his brutal honesty rather than his wonderful descriptions of the captivating landscapes that he passes through that impress most. Whilst he reports on the raise and fall of the Taliban, the war in Afghanistan, the demise of the Nepalese royal family and the death of a cricketing legend he continually questions his ability to balance his journalistic calling with basic human compassion and it is this struggle, which the author details exquisitely, that makes this book so rewarding.

The author, whilst playing down the stereotypical Aussie bloke toughness, gives us rare glimpses of the camaraderie and competition between journalists, the deep pockets and large crews of CNN compared to the frugal one-man-band of the ABC, and a shudder-up-the-spine when a colleague is fatally shot with a bullet that a few hours earlier would have had his name on it. Almost every page has some though-provoking incident and as the tension increases and the demands of war reporting become more intense Harely begins to unravel and comes to realise that although adrenaline is his best friend, the soul can only move as fast as a camel and that life is more than one surreal media circus.

This is a wonderful, humane book which gives both a worthy picture of the world at the end of the turbulent 20^th century and a portrait of a young man struggling to understand his calling in life. It should be on every traveller's reading list.

• Lost in Transmission by Jonathan Harley