The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

'The Bookseller of Kabul' by Asne Seierstad

Asne Seierstad (the author) went to Afghanistan to report on the conflict there and while there meet Sultan Kabul the bookseller. For more than twenty years Sultan Khan defied the authorities - be they communist or Taliban - to supply books to the people of Kabul. Throughout this time he has been 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 - almost ten thousand books -  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 and the role of women. Asne Seierstad is so interested in his life, that she returns to live with the bookseller and his family for four months in spring 2002. As an outsider, Asne Seierstad found herself in a unique position, able to move freely between the private, restricted sphere of the women - including Khan's two wives - and the freer, more public lives of the men. We also learn of proposals and marriages, suppression and abuse of power, crime and punishment. The result is a genuinely gripping and moving portrait of a family, and a clear-eyed assessment of a country struggling to free itself from history.

I read quite a few reviews on this book (book was my village book club November book) and to be honest wasn't sure what to expect. Some reviews said that the author made up the facts on the families life's and doesn't show true facts of Afghanistan; and other reviews rave on how fantastic the book was and how they learnt so much about Afghanistan and the lives people lead over there. So I started this book with mixed feelings. I have to say it, I really did enjoy the book, whether it was non-fiction or fiction, I really don't care. I enjoyed it as a story and if it was written on all facts all the better.
So reviewing as if the author wrote on all facts - the family were extremely hospitable to her. Seierstad portrays the family as being extremely nasty to each other and I know from one review I read commented on, how this portray was wrong that no family is without its redeeming qualities - that the author shouldn't have wrote about them in this way. But surely if this is how the family were with each other then why write it any differently. I'm sure there are families in Afghan that are caring and loving towards each other and if the Khan family were one of those families that Seierstad would have portrayed that. Aren't families like that, we see it everyday, nice families/nasty families!! You get to know each of the family members and understand why each member is the way they are, through no fault of their own. We learn how society has changed and how it is still changing, how women were forbidden to use nail polish and those who disobeyed had the tip of a finger or toe cut off - women didn't were open toe shoes or shoes with solid heels since it was believed that the sound of women walking might distract men!! I loved the insight to this family lives.

Many other journalists also reported on the lone bookseller in Kabul following the fall of the Taliban, so this may be the true story, who knows!!

I would recommend.