Product Description

Two weeks after September 11th, award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad went to Afghanistan to report on the conflict. In the following spring she returned to live with a bookseller and his family for several months. The Bookseller of Kabul is the fascinating account of her time spent living with the family of thirteen in their four-roomed home. Bookseller Sultan Khan defied the authorities for twenty years to supply books to the people of Kabul. He was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned by the communists and watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. He even resorted to hiding most of his stock in attics all over Kabul. But while Khan is passionate in his love of books and hatred of censorship, he is also a committed Muslim with strict views on family life. As an outsider, Seierstad is able to move between the private world of the women - including Khan's two wives - and the more public lives of the men. The result is an intimate and fascinating portrait of a family which also offers a unique perspective on a troubled country.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1478 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'A remarkable portrait, with deftly woven accounts of weddings and journeys, books and bookselling, relations and squabbles, firmly anchored by pleasing details about food and customs, all set against the backdrop of a derelict city, filthy and crammed bu

Asne Seierstad's work as a war correspondent brought her to Afghanistan in 2001. Intrigued, she returned after the Taliban's fall, and spent four months living with the Khans. Noting how the family must have seen her as some 'bi-gendered' creature, she wastes no time introducing us to the central character, Sultan Khan, the bookseller of the title. Sultan's love for his ancient country's culture gives him strength to stand up to Communist and Taliban alike. As they burn and destroy his beloved books he consoles himself with the knowledge that he has hidden away many more. He's also a man who puts himself first, and seems to always get what he wants, be it a priceless Persian text or a new wife. Through the family's experiences, Seierstad's no-nonsense style provides a close up look at a fascinating country and its people, still daring to hope after the horrific ravages of the recent past. (Kirkus UK)

Daily Telegraph
"Remarkable . . . honestly and intelligently written"

Daily Mail
" Fascinating . . . a colourful portrait of people struggling to survive in the most brutal circumstances"

Customer Reviews

There's a rat in my kitchen, what am I gonna do?
This account of an Afghan middle class family in the period immediately after the fall of the Taliban gives some acute and depressing insights into the routine and unthinking oppression that is the lot of many Afghan women. The bookseller - head of a large family - dragoons his sons into working long hours in his various bookshops and cruelly disregards the feelings of the female members of his family. He takes a young, uneducated second wife after he tires of his older, educated first wife. She is left to languish in Pakistan for years, cut off from her sons and daughters, until Sultan relents and allows her to return to Kabul. Sultan's younger sister is reduced to the role of a domestic servant, and her desire to teach is thwarted. The treatment of the male members of Sultan's family, despite them being allowed more freedom in Afghan society, is also callous and tyrannical.

It is easy to understand why the bookseller in question decided to take legal action against the author. The Bookseller of Kabul is billed as a non-fiction account of life with an Afghan family, written in the form of a novel. This is the source of much of the controversy surrounding the book, and, for me, created a strong sense of moral unease. If the author wished to write a true-life account of the sufferings of women in a traditional Afghan family, why did she not do so? Simply changing the name of the real life bookseller to her fictional Sultan Khan was not enough to protect the anonymity of her sources. Whatever one thinks about the bookseller - and his behaviour towards his family, if accurately reported, is indeed despicable - it is difficult not to conclude that Seierstad is guilty of a huge betrayal of trust. She must have known that merely changing the name of her subject would not protect his identity, when he is apparently such a high profile figure in Kabul. More importantly, she has exposed the identities of all of his family members, some of whom may now suffer the consequences.

Despite my misgivings about Seierstad's personal conduct in producing the book, it did provide a poignant account of the suffering and unhappiness that some Afghan women must endure at the hands of their men folk.

Review by Tony Judge, author of Sirocco Express (ISBN: 978-1409204466 )

An interesting portrayal of life in Kabul at the beginning of the 21st century
Seirstad begins the book with a foreword in praise of Sultan Khan, the bookseller she meets in Kabul. I (or the reader) is maybe expecting a warm account of family life amongst the unsettled times in Kabul during 2002, and after the terrorist attacks in America. Alongside that, a little history of Afghanistan and the political environment that saw soldiers burning his books in the street.

However...what we get is a disturbing account of everyday life for that particular family and others who are mentioned. The author tells us that this is not necessarily a picture of all Afghani families but a picture she gleaned from her stay with the Khans. It is clear however that there are many families that the women gossiped about who have a similar way of life.

It's sociologically interesting because Sultan's sons are a different generation and don't necessarily have the views of their father. They are are scared to go against him because he will disown them...and no matter what culture you are from it would hurt to be disowned by your family. Yet unlike more western cultures where you would remain in contact with some members of your family, the women in this account are so suppressed that they follow their husbands no matter what their own views.
It was sadly ironic to read of Leila's hard and unfair life to which she wakes every day "...to the sound of 'Allahu akhbar' - 'God is great'. A new day which smells and tastes like every other day: of dust."

How awful it must be to worry about things (the sex of an unborn baby, or an attraction to someone from the opposite sex) that are out of your control, for fear of how you or your children will be treated.

Although written in novel form, you are always aware that the people in the story, albeit with changed names, are very real.

Another very good read on Afghanistan
This was the 4th book I had read about Afghanistan, after The Swallows of Kabul and Khaled Hosseini's two classic bestsellers. The difference is that this is a non-fiction book.

The author is a Norwegian journalist who lives with an Afghani family for a few months and observes their daily lives and interactions. The head of the household in which she resides is the owner of the bookstore. The book highlights the male dominated Afghani culture, and the author frequently relates her anger (and even disgust) at the inevitable but sad destinies of most women in Afghanistan. No matter how educated or ambitious, many are forced to settle for a role as housewife and essentially servant to the men of the house. Step out of line...and expect a beating.

A real insight into a culture very, very different from ours... an interesting read.