The Bookseller of Kabul

I read this book in a day, hardly moving from my sunbed on holiday. It's an amazing insight into life in Afghanistan. As a female, I was totally horrified by the sad existance the women lead. They truly are seen as 2nd class citizens! The author lived with the Khan family and you get a birds eye view of real Afghan life behind closed doors. If you enjoyed the Kite Runner then this is worth reading.

An excellent book (0/0 people found this helpful)

I bought this book expecting an insight into the regime in a land much different to ours. Instead the author crafts a wonderful book which I could not put down. I was intrigued by the culture, society and the Afghan family central to the book. Each character has a different story facing their own different problems and issues.

This is a must read book which I highly reccomend

MEDIEVAL TIMES... (1/1 people found this helpful)

Just after the fall of the Taliban regime, the author, an award winning Norwegian journalist, lived in Afghanistan with a middle class bookseller and his family for three months. What emerged from her intimate association with this family is a book that almost reads like a novel, so riveting is the account of life in post Taliban Afghanistan.

The bookseller, Sultan Khan, is a canny and shrewd business man, as well as a devout Muslim, who despite his love of books, seems to have learned little from the knowledge at his fingertips. He rules the roost like a patriarchal despot with a decidedly strict view of the role of women. In fact, it is through the women in his household that the reader is drawn into how truly circumscribed and stultifying life is for Afghani women, even after the Taliban is no longer in power. Khan rules his household as if it were a feudal fiefdom, with little thought, concern, or interest in the desires, hopes, and dreams of the members of his household.

The author's reporting on what life is like in post Taliban Afghanistan paints a fairly grim picture of a society fraught with ignorance and corruption. It is a society where women are merely chattel with little or no say in their future. Education is pretty much non-existent, and what passes for such is pathetic. Even that little, however, is routinely denied to the feminine gender. It was also particularly surprising, as well as ironic, that Sultan Khan, being a bookseller and purporting to love books, denied even his sons an education.

The author certainly has had an eye-opening experience by donning a burka and I, for one, am glad that she chose to share it. Despite its lack of any cogent critical analysis, this is certainly a provocative book and one that will provide much food for thought. Her birds-eye view of life in Afghanistan is truly a powerful statement and an indictment of a society so steeped in ignorance and poverty that it will take a miracle for it to enter into the twenty first century. Life in modern day Afghanistan is bleak, indeed. Those with an interest in other cultures will certainly enjoy this book.

A DEPRESSING INSIGHT INTO MALE DOMINATED CULTURE (0/0 people found this helpful)

What a terrible life women have in Afganistan! The men may not have much of a life either but at least they get to choose their partner and have some semblance of control over their lives. Sultan is an educated and enlightened man keeping the literary flame lit in a country dedicated to removing all pictorial images under the Taliban and yet he treats his entire family as an adjunct to his business and takes a younger wife without a thought for his first wife who is still forced to do his bidding. A well written but ultimately depressing account of life in Afganistan.

Mick Drake author of the comic novel All`s Well at Wellwithoute

Very interesting (1/1 people found this helpful)

I don't usually read non-fiction but this was brilliant; very easy to read and gripping. It was very informative about the Afghan way of life and the Taliban. I thoroughly recommend this.

Asne Seierstad

Reader Reviews:

A captivating read. (0/0 people found this helpful)

An excellent book (0/0 people found this helpful)

MEDIEVAL TIMES... (1/1 people found this helpful)

A DEPRESSING INSIGHT INTO MALE DOMINATED CULTURE (0/0 people found this helpful)

Very interesting (1/1 people found this helpful)

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