The Bookseller of Kabul

Two weeks after September 11th awardwinning journalist Asne Seierstad went toAfghanistan to report on the conflict. In the following spring she returned tolive ... » 

Two weeks after September 11th awardwinning journalist Asne Seierstad went toAfghanistan to report on the conflict. In the following spring she returned tolive with a bookseller and his family for several months. The Bookseller ofKabul is the fascinating account of her time spent living with the family ofthirteen in their fourroomed home. Bookseller Sultan Khan defied theauthorities for twenty years to supply books to the people of Kabul. He wasarrested interrogated and imprisoned by the communists and watched illiterateTaliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. He even resorted tohiding most of his stock in attics all over Kabul. But while Khan is passionatein his love of books and hatred of censorship he is also a committed Muslimwith strict views on family life. As an outsider Seierstad is able to movebetween the private world of the women including Khans two wives and themore public lives of the men. The result is an intimate and fascinatingportrait of a family which also offers a unique perspective on a troubledcountry. «