Working within the possible Afghanistan

In 2000, Rory Stewart, a British diplomat, took a leave and spent two years walking across Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. He described his 6,000-mile journey in "The Places in Between," named one of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of 2006. In 2003, he became coalition Deputy Governor of Maysan and Dhi Qar provinces in Southern Iraq and wrote about the experience in his second book, "The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq." He has also written for the New York Times, the London Review of Books, the Guardian, the Financial Times and Granta. In 2004, he was awarded an OBE and became a Fellow at Harvard's Carr Center. He now lives in Kabul, where he runs the Turquoise Mountain Foundation.