In the course of her career as a journalist, Anita Pratap reported extensively from the conflict zones of South Asia. During the eighties and nineties, when the Indian media rarely ventured into flashpoints like Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, Anita Pratap braved the odds to send in reports from the front, over and over again. War, ethnic conflict, earthquakes, cyclones and droughts-- wherever there was a story to be told, she would track it down. Wherever she went, she saw and faithfully reported the consequences of racial and historical prejudice, religious and sexual discrimination, and mindless hatred and fear. And each time, she returned to the normalcy of her world with a prayer of gratitude for the blessings of daily life, and a renewed determination to celebrate the ordinary. Island of Blood is a distillation of the experiences and insights of one of the finest journalists India has ever produced. First book by one of India's outstanding woman journalists. Anita Pratap has won several awards, including the prestigious George Polk award for her coverage of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 1996, and the Chameli Devi Jain award in 1997.