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The Bookseller Of Kabul

The International Bestseller - 'An intimate portrait of Afghani people quite unlike any other' SUNDAY TIMES

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The Bookseller Of Kabul

By: Åsne Seierstad
Narrated by: Emilia Fox
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For more than twenty years Sultan Khan defied the authorities to supply books to the people of Kabul. He was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned, and watched illiterate soldiers burn piles of his books in the street.
In spring 2002 award-winning journalist Åsne Seierstad spent four months living with the bookseller and his family. As she steps back from the page and lets the Khans tell their stories, we learn of proposals and marriages, hope and fear, crime and punishment. The result is a unique portrait of a family and a country.
'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 but not defeated ... [Seierstad] was fascinated by everything she witnessed, and her curiosity and perceptive eye colours every page' INDEPENDENT©2002 Åsne Seierstad Asia Cultural & Regional Middle East Military
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Critic reviews

Written sometimes more like fiction than fact ... this is 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 but not defeated
Fascinating ... a colourful portrait of people struggling to survive in the most brutal circumstances ... bear[s] witness to the power of literature to withstand even the most repressive regime
A unique insight into another world as the Norwegian answer to Kate Adie shares the life of a family in Kabul
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The author, a Norwegian woman, gets the opportunity of staying with an Afghan family, the Bookseller of Kabul to be precise, and Seierstad shares with us what she sees, learns and experiences about the life of the bookseller, a society, a country and a family structure so very different from ours.

A must read about family life in Afghanistan

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I loved this book, the story, the way it was written, the narrator was just perfect. It’s a long time since I had such a good book.

Excellent

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I was uncertain whether I really wanted to hear this, but it was on my book club's list so I gave it a go. I couldn't put it down. I felt that I better understood the situation in the country and what had lead to it's problems. Somewhat brutal at times, certainly very sad in places, but always fascinating.

Brilliant insight to this Country and it's people

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A supposedly non-fiction book written by a Scandinavian who did not speak the local languages and only stayed with the bookseller's family for 3 months and yet we are to believe that she was able to get into the heads of multiple people from a completely different culture. And 100% bleakness? No place for happiness/brightness in this society? There are points of interest in it, however, and the narrator does an excellent job with the matieral available.

Bleak 'non fiction' but can it really be accurate?

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Really enjoyable but I was confused by so many characters without space to introduce them sufficiently.

Great, but ends rather abruptly

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