The Bookseller of Kabul [Audio Cassette]

Asne Seierstad (Author), Joanna David (Narrator), Ingrid Christophersen (Translator)

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Clipper Audio (December 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841979635
• ISBN-13: 978-1841979632
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (168 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,615,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

132 of 135 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, December 2, 2003

By 

A. Lord "georgianlover" (Washington DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bookseller of Kabul (Hardcover)

Sierstad has written an outstanding book---her writing is lyrical (or at least the translation is!) and the subject is fascinating. Contrary to what other reviewers have said, Sierstad never claims that her family is representative of the Afghani people (in her introduction, she notes that she picked the Khan family because she found them and their stories compelling---she says, however, that the family is by no means typical as they are literate, middle class and urban).

That said, the book does provide a penetrating look at a complex and complicated family forced to live under horrific conditions. Within the context of his society, Sultan Khan is an enlightened and liberal man. No fundamentalist, he reads widely and believes in freedom of thought and speech. But for all that Khan is a liberal man in a conservative society---he is still a product of a highly conservative society. As such, he is a polygamist and a man who forces his sons to bind to his will.

Khan is not a likeable man but his story, which the author tells in great detail, goes a long way in explaining who he is and why he acts as he does. As a bookseller, Khan was tortured first by the Soviets and then by the Taliban. Not surprisingly, he seeks, above all, to protect himself and all he owns (which for him, includes his family) from the ravages of war. This means, of course, that Khan forces the members of his family to do his bidding (his sons are taken from school and forced to work in his businesses etc.).

Khan is a despot. His actions toward his two wives, his children, his siblings and his nephews all reflect his desire to control his fate in a society which has allowed him no control over his own life. That doesn't excuse him, of course. As a westerner reading the book (and as a woman), I was appalled by Khan's horrific treatment of his wives---I found it fascinating that Khan could easily reject those aspects of Islam which he found demanding (praying five times a day) while adhering to those which work to his benefit (polygamy and the right to a teenage wife when he is in his 50s).

The book isn't a simple man--bad, woman-good type of book. Look closely at the female characters (Khan's mother is as much a despot as Khan himself is)---their lives are equally complex and they are deeply nuanced individuals. On the flip side (and this can't be denied), women in Afghanistan suffer under the hands of men.

I strongly recommend this book!

145 of 149 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No wonder the man is upset, December 13, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bookseller of Kabul (Hardcover)

...but Sultan Khan had his head in the clouds if he thought he was going to emerge from this journalist's immersion in his family's life looking like a benevolent god. He's suing her, as the book-reading world knows by now, for something like defamation of character. I'm sure he thought she would extol his virtues; instead, she wrote honestly of the fiercely patriarchal Afghanistan/Muslim traditional family structure that keeps his tyranny intact and subjugates all women, regardless of their educational level or social status.
The Bookseller of Kabul reads more like good New Journalism. It's not great literature; it's great reportage. But it gives a voice to the women in the extended Family (meant in the broadest sense of the word), a voice that speaks for millions of women in the Middle East, a voice that must be heard. Especially heartbreaking is the fate of Leila, sister of Sultan Khan, educated, literate, bright - but unable to speak up for herself to escape a lifetime of servitude.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars norwegian journalist woman on everyday afghan life, January 17, 2007

By 

Daniel B. Clendenin (www.journeywithjesus.net) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bookseller of Kabul (Paperback)

In November 2001, after the fall of the Taliban, the Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad befriended a bookseller in Kabul who invited her to his home for dinner. Before long they agreed for her to live in Sultan Khan's home for three months in order to write a book about about his family. The Bookseller of Kabul, an international bestseller translated into thirty languages, and the most successful nonfiction book in Norwegian history, chronicles Seierstad's first person narrative about her experiences of Afghan gender roles, education, politics, religion, and culture.

At first Seierstad thought she had met a remarkably liberated Afghan man. Sultan was an ardent bibliophile who loved books and ideas. In a country where three-quarters of the population is illiterate, he had amassed a collection of 10,000 books, including rare manuscripts, that he had squirreled away around town. He survived the Soviet communists and the Islamic fundamentalists, and spent time in jail for anti-Islamic behavior. He despised the Taliban who burned his books. His family was wealthy by local standards, his opinions about women appeared liberal, he bought his wife western clothes in Iran, and derided the burka as a symbol of his beloved country's backwardness and oppression.

At home Seierstad discovered an altogether different Sultan, and for the most part her narrative reads like a cultural expose. She begins by telling the story of how Sultan took sixteen-year-old Sonya as his second wife, much to the grief of his first wife Sharifa. At home Sultan was an unapologetic tyrant toward everyone in his family. His two wives and daughters slaved away at cooking and cleaning. He consigned his twelve-year-old son to sell candy in a dark and dank stall that he called "the dreary room." When a poor carpenter stole some post cards from his shop to feed his seven children, Sultan was merciless. The book alternates between describing the particular abuse in Sultan's home, and that in broader Afghan culture. A first-grader, for example, learns the alphabet by memorizing the following: "I is for Israel, our enemy; J is for Jihad, our aim in life; K is for Kalishnikov, we will overcome; . . . M is for Mujahedeen, our heroes; . . . T is for Taliban. . . "

The Bookseller of Kabul captures everyday life in a country ravaged by twenty years of war and characterized by deep cultural conservatism. In an ironic postscript to the book's wild success, Sultan has sued Seierstad and her publisher for libel in a Norwegian court. He insists that his hospitality was abused, his personal life was slandered, and that his family has been endangered, so he has, in good western fashion, demanded what his lawyer has called "redress and compensation."