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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Feb 2004, 208 pages
Paperback:
Apr 2005, 208 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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This dazzling novel by one of Algeria's top writers is set in the hot, dusty streets of Kabul under Taliban rule and offers a compassionate insight into a society brought to the edge of despair by hypocrisy and violence.
Set in Kabul under the rule of the Taliban, this extraordinary novel takes readers into the lives of two couples: Mohsen, who comes from a family of wealthy shopkeepers whom the Taliban has destroyed; Zunaira, his wife, exceedingly beautiful, who was once a brilliant teacher and is now no longer allowed to leave her home without an escort or covering her face. Intersecting their world is Atiq, a prison keeper, a man who has sincerely adopted the Taliban ideology and struggles to keep his faith, and his wife, Musarrat, who once rescued Atiq and is now dying of sickness and despair.
Desperate, exhausted Mohsen wanders through Kabul when he is surrounded by a crowd about to stone an adulterous woman. Numbed by the hysterical atmosphere and drawn into their rage, he too throws stones at the face of the condemned woman buried up to her waist. With this gesture the lives of all four protagonists move toward their destinies.
The Swallows of Kabul is a dazzling novel written with compassion and exquisite detail by one of the most lucid writers about the mentality of Islamic fundamentalists and the complexities of the Muslim world. Yasmina Khadra brings readers into the hot, dusty streets of Kabul and offers them an unflinching but compassionate insight into a society that violence and hypocrisy have brought to the edge of despair.
Chapter One
Atiq Shaukat flails about him with his whip, trying to force a passage through the ragged crowd swirling around the stalls in the market like a swarm of dead leaves. He's late, but he finds it impossible to proceed any faster. It's like being inside a beehive; the vicious blows he deals out are addressed to no one in particular. On souk day, people act as if in a trance. The throng makes Atiq's head spin. In thicker and thicker waves, beggars arrive from the four corners of the city and compete with carters and onlookers for hypothetically free spaces. The porters' effluvia and the emanations of rotting produce fill the air with an appalling stench, and a burden of relentless heat crushes the esplanade. A few spectral women, segregated inside their grimy burqas, extend imploring hands and clutch at passersby; some receive a coin for their trouble, others just a curse. Often, when the women grow too insistent, an infuriated lashing drives them backward. But their ...
One reviewer compares this relatively short novel to Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. I agree to the extent that they are both relatively short books set in locations that are foreign to most of us, but other than that I don't see much similarity. Dai Sijie's book tells a strong story but has moments of lightness; whereas The Swallows of Kabul is variously described as 'poetic, intimate, and poignant' but there are no light moments. Having said all that The Swallows of Kabul is worth reading for its relevance to current affairs and for the glimmers of humanity that show themselves even in the most relentlessly harsh conditions...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran
I am so grateful that the The Swallows of Kabul has been written, and written with such relentless poetry and passion. The reality of life under a rule such as the Taliban's makes us despair not only of the land that could tolerate such horror, but also of the world that for so long kept silent about it. However, the way that reality is narrated and ultimately redefined by Yasmina Khadra once more proves the power of fiction to turn our despair into hope, to restore our stolen sense of dignity and humanity and to desire life when death seems to be the safest refuge. Da Chen, author of China's Son: Growing Up in the Cultural Revolution
The Swallows of Kabul is reminiscent of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. It is a gem in world literature--poetic, intimate, and poignant--painting a beautiful yet sorrowful landscape of a people and their turbulent lives, lived and lamented in a forgotten land. A must read. J. M. Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature
Yasmina Khadra's Kabul is hell on earth, a place of hunger, tedium, and stifling fear.Afghanistan's strategic position between
Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent has
made it an area of conflict for millenia.
The Soviet Union intervened in 1979 to prop up a pro-communist
regime, but after they withdraw many years
later the civil war dragged on until the
Taleban took control - initially bringing a
measure of stability after 20 years of
conflict.
The Taleban government fell in October 2001, after US initiated
attacks (although power lingers in some
areas).
In late 2001 Radio
Afghanistan played music on air for ...
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