Co-presented by AFGHAN WOMEN'S MISSION and PEACE ACTION OF WASHINGTON. A national speaking tour, which coincides with the U.S. publication of her memoir, brings Afghan reformer and democracy activist Malalai Joya to Seattle. Her powerful book, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice (Scribner), recounts a story of speaking out—and surviving. Ms. Joya first reached prominence at a constitutional assembly when she denounced the NATO-backed warlords. Two years later, at 27, she was the youngest person elected to Afghanistan's new Parliament. In 2007, she was suspended from Parliament for her persistent criticism of drug barons and warlords. Numerous attempts have been made on her life. "Afghan activist Joya makes an urgent plea for the world to acknowledge the truths hidden in the corrupt, complex country of Afghanistan ... After surviving multiple assassination attempts, she continues to spread her message of human rights, women's rights, democracy, and secularism. The author's brave narrative uses her personal experiences to outline the oppressive misrule of the past three decades in Afghanistan, and Joya is careful to differentiate between her country's corrupt government and its freedom-wanting people. A chilling, vital memoir that reveals hidden truths about Afghanistan and directly addresses the misguided policies of the United States." - Kirkus Reviews. Free admission. Seattle First Baptist Church is at 1111 Harvard Avenue (at Seneca). For more information, please see www.peace-action.org, www.afghanwomensmission.org, or call (206) 453-4471.

Co-presented with the TOWN HALL CENTER FOR CIVIC LIFE. In Stripping Bare the Body: Politics, Violence, War (Nation Books), award-winning author Mark Danner draws on over twenty-five years as a foreign affairs journalist for such publications as The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times Magazine in giving readers an open-eyed view of the U.S. and its exercises of power. "The publication of Mark Danner's Stripping Bare the Body is a big deal ... Because Danner's writing over the past three decades forms a definitive, and absolutely riveting, chronicle of the dark side of the post-Cold War world, from Haiti to Abu Ghraib, and beyond. No other writer combines brilliant and outrageous reporting with brilliant and courageous political and moral thinking as Danner does. He's also, first and last, a breathtakingly good writer. For anyone who cares about the fate of our foreign policy and our republic and, indeed, the human condition, Stripping Bare the Body is a touchstone book." - Michael Pollan, joined by Dave Eggers, Andrew J. Bacevich, Adam Hochschild, Ron Suskind, and others in early praise. Mark Danner is a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs, Politics, and Humanities at Bard College. $5 tickets are available at the door starting at 6:30 p.m. or via www.brownpapertickets.com (or 1-800-838-3006). Preferred seating for Town Hall members. Town Hall Seattle is at 1119 Eighth Avenue (at Seneca). For more information, please call Elliott Bay at (206) 624-6600, Town Hall at (206) 652-4255, or see www.townhallseattle.org.