She has been thinking about her "Middle East book" for 15 years but never thought she had time to write. The now completed book debut "All has a taste of ashes" is based on the terrorist attacks on October 7 and the war in Gaza. She wrote it only after Bonniers forced her.
I am afraid of how people will receive it. It has not been easy, it has only been anxiety and anguish, she says.
Sveriges Radio's long-time correspondent has previously been questioned for individual reports, but what she faces now is something else.
I am accused of being a "damn Hamas whore" and of supporting a genocide. It is very unpleasant.
Criticized collaboration
In her book, she gets close to those she portrays, not least the tailor Farouk and his relatives, but does not seem to be afraid of provoking their anger.
They know that I know a lot about the whole family, how they have felt and how I have still tried to portray them honestly but lovingly.
Political scientist and opinion-maker Magnus Ranstorp has criticized her collaboration with journalist Sami Abu Salem, who sends reports from inside war-torn Gaza, which Israel has closed to foreign media. The criticism concerns his parallel job for the news agency Wafa, which is owned by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority on the West Bank.
Thus, Sami Abu Salem is also automatically suspected by Hamas, who knows that he belongs to their critics, emphasizes Uddén.
Ranstorp tried to mix up the cards a bit and make it sound like this is a Hamas news agency. That's not the case, and he knows it very well, says Uddén, who has known Sami Abu Salem since 2009.
In a post on X, Magnus Ranstorp objects to Uddén's description in the interview with TT, which he thinks is "completely wrong". "I don't say a word about Hamas. My objection concerns Sveriges Radio's lack of transparency: they present a colleague as independent despite being tied to the Palestinian Authority's news agency Wafa."
Banned journalists
It was in protest against Israel banning international journalists from Gaza that she signed Magda Gad's journalist appeal. Afterwards, Uddén regretted the sentence about Western media, "through their shortcomings, contributing to legitimizing what most genocide and even Holocaust experts now describe as just that: an ongoing genocide".
If you conduct an investigation, you cannot prove that Western media have contributed to a genocide, but that they have been inadequate, and that debate, I think, will come.
Some hope Uddén cannot muster. But she writes at the same time about the growing peace movement Standing Together, which brings together both Israelis and Palestinians and is part of the demonstrations in Israel.
It's the old Israel that's out protesting against the government, and which makes up almost half of the population, I'd say, if you count everyone. They are in the minority, she says.
Born: 1960.
Background: Long-time employee of Sveriges Radio and foreign correspondent in the Middle East. Has received a number of awards for her work, most recently last autumn when she, together with Sami Abu Salem, Sveriges Radio's employee in Gaza, received the Grand Journalism Prize in the category Voice of the Year.
