Kamissa Camara: From the centre of power in Mali to studying the soldiers who seized it

Kamissa Camara had just 20 minutes’ notice before being named Mali’s foreign minister, a meteoric rise from the diaspora to the heart of political power in Bamako. Two years later, a military coup brought down the government she served.

And timing is important. Three minutes before our 9am EST Zoom interview, Camara asks for five more minutes, a small glimpse of the busy life into which she has squeezed our morning coffee. When she joins, our conversation soon returns to that extraordinary passage through power and its abrupt end.