When veteran reporter Fariba Nawa returned home to Afghanistan—the nation she had fled as a child with her family during the Soviet invasion nearly twenty years earlier—she discovered a fractured country transformed by a multibillion-dollar drug trade. In Opium Nation, Nawa deftly illuminates the changes that have overtaken Afghanistan after decades of unbroken war. Sharing remarkable stories of poppy farmers, corrupt officials, expats, drug lords, and addicts, including her haunting encounter with a twelve-year-old child bride who was bartered to pay off her father’s opium debts, Nawa offers a revealing and provocative narrative of a homecoming more difficult than she ever imagined as she courageously explores her own Afghan American identity and unveils a startling portrait of a land in turmoil.
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“Nawa deftly sketches the geopolitical nightmare that is today’s Afghanistan, but the book’s real strength is her detailed, sensitive reporting of individual people’s stories.” (Boston Globe )
“Journalists, policy makers, and scholars have written on the Afghan drug trade, but no one has shown its human drama and toll like Fariba Nawa. [She] offers a unique view of the human side of this conflict in which we are so deeply engaged.” (Barnett R. Rubin, author of The Fragmentation of Afghanistan )
“Nawa ably captures the tragic complexity of Afghan society and the sheer difficulty of life there. . . . Her assured narrative clearly stems from in-depth reporting in a risk-laden environment.” (Kirkus Reviews )
“Insightful and informative. . . . Fariba Nawa weaves her personal story of reconnecting with her homeland after 9/11 with a very engaging narrative that chronicles Afghanistan’s dangerous descent into opium trafficking . . . [and] how the drug trade has damaged the lives of ordinary Afghan people.” (Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns )
“Powerful. . . . Nawa draws rich, complex portraits of subjects on both sides of the law . . . Nawa’s work is remarkable for its depth, honesty, and commitment to recording women’s stories, even when it means putting her own safety at risk. She writes with passion about the history of her volatile homeland and with cautious optimism about its future.” (Publishers Weekly )
“Opium Nation brings much needed depth and complexity to any conversation involving Afghanistan and its future. Fariba Nawa writes with the detailed eye of a journalist, the warmth of a proud Afghan and the nuanced perspective of someone effortlessly straddling the East and the West.” (Firoozeh Dumas, author of Laughing Without an Accent and Funny in Farsi )
“Journalists, policy makers, and scholars have written on the Afghan drug trade, but no one has shown its human drama and toll like Fariba Nawa. [She] offers a unique view of the human side of this conflict in which we are so deeply engaged.” (Barnett R. Rubin, author of The Fragmentation of Afghanistan )
“Nawa ably captures the tragic complexity of Afghan society and the sheer difficulty of life there. . . . Her assured narrative clearly stems from in-depth reporting in a risk-laden environment.” (Kirkus Reviews )
“Insightful and informative. . . . Fariba Nawa weaves her personal story of reconnecting with her homeland after 9/11 with a very engaging narrative that chronicles Afghanistan’s dangerous descent into opium trafficking . . . [and] how the drug trade has damaged the lives of ordinary Afghan people.” (Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns )
“Powerful. . . . Nawa draws rich, complex portraits of subjects on both sides of the law . . . Nawa’s work is remarkable for its depth, honesty, and commitment to recording women’s stories, even when it means putting her own safety at risk. She writes with passion about the history of her volatile homeland and with cautious optimism about its future.” (Publishers Weekly )
“Opium Nation brings much needed depth and complexity to any conversation involving Afghanistan and its future. Fariba Nawa writes with the detailed eye of a journalist, the warmth of a proud Afghan and the nuanced perspective of someone effortlessly straddling the East and the West.” (Firoozeh Dumas, author of Laughing Without an Accent and Funny in Farsi )
About the Author
Fariba Nawa has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones, The Sunday Times Magazine (London), Newsday, and the Village Voice. She has been a guest on CBS’s 48 Hours as well as numerous other television and radio shows on NPR, the BBC, MTV, and NBC. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two daughters.
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More About the Author
Fariba Nawa, an award-winning Afghan-American journalist, covers a range of issues and specializes in immigrant and Muslim communities in the United States and abroad. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area but has traveled extensively to the Middle East and South Asia. She lived and reported from Afghanistan from 2002 to 2007, and witnessed the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and al Qaeda. She has also reported from Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, and Germany. She has a master's in Middle Eastern studies and journalism. Her work has appeared in the Sunday Times of London, Newsday, Mother Jones, The Village Voice, The Christian Science Monitor and numerous other publications. She also reports for radio, including National Public Radio (NPR) and is the author of the groundbreaking report, Afghanistan, Inc., and a contributing writer in the upcoming book Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands, to be published in spring 2012 by Harvard University Press. Her essays have also been published in two other books, March to War and Women for Afghan Women. A frequent speaker on Middle East and South Asian issues, she has participated in talks at the World Affairs Council, major universities, and has been interviewed by prominent television and radio networks.
Opium Nation, which has received critical acclaim, is her first book.
Opium Nation, which has received critical acclaim, is her first book.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fascinating Read,
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This review is from: Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords, and One Woman's Journey Through Afghanistan (Paperback)
Opium Nation is an excellent read about the side of the opium/heroin drug business we don't often think about in the West - its inception in Afghanistan.I agree with a lot of what the other reviewers say here about the book providing much needed insight into the workings of the drug trade and the lives it impacts. But what really stood out for me were the descriptions of the lives of girls and women in Afghanistan - they aren't always what you might expect. From stories of girls' lives growing up in war - to female drug smugglers and addicts - to politicians and anti-narcotics officers - to the author's own story as an Afghan-American woman returning there - these narratives flesh out what is often missing in accounts of Afghanistan - the diverse and fascinating lives of women there. Hands down, this is the best book I have read on the subject of the Afghan drug trade. And in addition to being very informative, it's a really enjoyable book to read. You'll find your mind turning to the people whose lives Nawa recounts well after you have finished reading the book. To me, that's the mark of a good book. I recommend Opium Nation to anyone who is curious about Afghan society and wants to better understand the role of the drug trade in modern day Afghanistan.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
... Absolutely engaging, witty, and thoroughly accessible.,
This review is from: Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords, and One Woman's Journey Through Afghanistan (Paperback)
Fariba Nawa: writes beautifully and sincerely, recreating her earliest memories from Afghanistan, during the Soviet occupation-- gracefully weaving together intimate, personal family history, with the experiences of a child growing up inside a very close loving family, surrounded by pomegranate orchards, inside the ancient walls of a once, great Medieval city, and surviving the deafening sounds, and graphic imagery of gunfire, and violent resistance. Nawa writes with the precision and shrewdness of a veteran journalist, tying together biography, politics, and history, in a way that I find absolutely engaging, witty, and thoroughly accessible.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book on Afghanistan and the U.S. role in the region,
This review is from: Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords, and One Woman's Journey Through Afghanistan (Paperback)
Nawa writes truthfully, accounting her narrative with intelligence and wittiness, yet engages it with the current political situation on hand in U.S. and Afghanistan. She does not leave the reader bored in any part of the book, an easy read yet full of knowledge that has been prepared by Nawa to make the culture/history of Afghanistan smooth for those not familiar with the region. A must read, both inspirational and encouraging story of one Afghan-American trying to finding the inner self by swapping her lifestyle for years in a dangerous terrain, to find both her inner/outer identity in the end.Her account of what truly takes place in Afghanistan is of importance, we do not get this kind of information from any other media outlets. This work will be essentially very important for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, if reconstruction is an "ideal" goal.
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