Fariba Nawa will serve as tour guide to two Assembly Series programs on Afghanistan

Afghan-American journalist and Opium Nation author Fariba Nawa will participate in two Washington University in St. Louis programs exploring the current and future state of Afghanistan: She will give an Assembly Series talk, “Afghanistan, Heroin and Women,” at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16, in Umrath Lounge; and she will lead a panel discussion, “Aftershocks of the Afghanistan War: What’s Next for Those Who Left and for Those Left Behind,” at 2 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, in Mallinckrodt Center’s Multipurpose Room. Both are free and open to the public. Nawa was born in Afghanistan but later moved to California. She returned after the U.S.-led fight began against the Taliban and al-Qaida in that country, and in 2011 wrote a book about the addictions, violence and other tragedies borne of Afghanistan’s opiate industry.