The Bookseller of Kabul

The Bookseller of KabulWith The Bookseller of Kabul, award winning journalist Asne Seierstad has given readers a first hand look at Afghani life as few outsiders have seen it. Invited to live with Sultan Khan, a bookseller in Kabul, and his family for months, this account of her experience allows the Khans to speak for themselves, giving us a genuinely gripping and moving portrait of a family, and of a country of great cultural riches and extreme contradictions. For more

With The Bookseller of Kabul, award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad has given readers a first-hand look at Afghani life as few outsiders have seen it.

Invited to live with Sultan Khan, a bookseller in Kabul, and his family for months, this account of her experience allows the Khans to speak for themselves, giving us a genuinely gripping and moving portrait of a family, and of a country of great cultural riches and extreme contradictions. For more than 20 years, Sultan Khan has defied the authorities -- whether Communist or Taliban -- to supply books to the people of Kabul. He has been arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned, and has watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. Yet he had persisted in his passion for books, shedding light in one of the world's darkest places. This is the intimate portrait of a man of principle and of his family -- two wives, five children, and many relatives sharing a small four-room house in this war ravaged city. But more than that, it is a rare look at contemporary life under Islam, where even after the Taliban's collapse, the women must submit to arranged marriages, polygamous husbands, and crippling limitations on their ability to travel, learn and communicate with others.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Published: 10/26/2004
ISBN: 9780316159418
Pages: 320
Weight: 0.64lbs
Size: 8.22h x 5.52w x 0.85d

Review Citations: New York Times 12/12/2004 pg. 30

Accelerated Reader Quiz #/Name: 83256 / Bookseller of Kabul
Reading Level: 6.4 / Interest Level: Upper Grade / Point Value: 13