There's nothing new about people in Australian TV heading overseas, but producer and writer Trudi-Ann Tierney chose an unusual destination: Afghanistan.
In Making Soapies in Kabul, she describes the three and a half years she spent working for Afghanistan's Moby Media Group.
Under the Taliban, TV had been banned for 10 years. Tierney had the task of raising production values, and went on to call the shots on soap operas, action dramas and even a mockumentary series about Afghan bureaucracy.
All this while wearing modest garb, dodging the censor, and desperately trying to find and keep actresses, in a land where that profession is viewed as akin to prostitution.
Tierney had to train up her young and mostly inexperienced casts and crew, deal with fights along ethnic lines in the writers' room - and cope with the odd Taliban attack.
This portrait of a fledgling industry and a land in transition makes for a diverting and different read.
*Making Soapies in Kabul: Hot Days, Crazy Nights and Dangerous Liaisons in a War Zone, by Trudi-Ann Tierney, is published by Allen & Unwin, RRP $29.99.
