The Swallows of Kabul [Paperback]

Yasmina Khadra (Author), John Cullen (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2005

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Khadra is the nom de plume for Algerian army officer Mohamed Moulessehoul (In the Name of God; Wolf Dreams), who illustrates the effects of repression on a pair of Kabul couples in this slim, harrowing novel of life in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Gloomy prison guard Atiq Shaukat is tired of his grim duties, keeping watch over prisoners slated for public execution. Life at home, where his wife, Musarrat, is slowly dying of a chronic illness, is no better. Mohsen Ramat, meanwhile, clings to the remains of his middle-class life together with his beautiful, progressive wife, Zunaira, after the Taliban strip them of their livelihood and dignity. Khadra's storytelling style recalls that of Naguib Mahfouz in the early chapters, in which the tense dissatisfaction of both couples is revealed. The pivotal event occurs when Ramat discharges his frustrations by participating in the brutal stoning of a female Taliban prisoner. The incident changes the dynamic of his marriage; after an extended argument about the incident, Ramat persuades Zunaira to go for a stroll in downtown Kabul and the couple is harassed and nearly brutalized by Taliban soldiers. Zunaira continues to bridle at her situation, and when their next argument turns physical, Ramat falls and dies after hitting his head on the wall. Shaukat is given the assignment of guarding Zunaira after she is arrested and charged with murder, and his instant infatuation with her sets off a remarkable chain of events. Khadra's simple, elegant prose, finely drawn characters and chilling insights ("Kabul has become the antechamber to the great beyond") prepare the way for the terrible climax. Like Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, this is a superb meditation on the fate of the Afghan people.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The New Yorker

Two men struggle to keep their sanity in a brief, despairing novel written pseudonymously by a former Algerian Army officer. Before the destruction wrought by the Soviet war and Taliban rule, Mohsen was an affluent merchant; now he wanders the streets while his beautiful wife is confined to home and burka. Atiq, a volatile ex-mujahideen, guards the prisoners awaiting public execution. One day, Mohsen stops to observe the public stoning of a prostitute, one of Atiq's charges. Caught up in the frenzy, he joins in, initiating a series of tragic events. Khadra's prose is gentle and precise, but the violent climax of the book makes a powerful point about what can happen to a man when "the light of his conscience has gone out."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Paperback: 195 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (April 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400033764
• ISBN-13: 978-1400033768
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #83,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A portrait of a nation in crisis, November 15, 2004

By 

Michael J. Mazza - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Swallows of Kabul: A Novel (Hardcover)

"The Swallows of Kabul," by Yasmina Khadra, is a novel that has been translated from the French by John Cullen. The book's dustcover notes that Yasmina Khadra is the pen name of Mohammed Moulessehoul, an Algerian army officer who used the feminine pseudonym in order to avoid censorship.

"Swallows" is a gripping tale that takes place in Afghanistan during the reign of the Taliban. The story revolves around the lives of the men and women who endured life under this religious fundamentalist regime. The author vividly depicts the cruelty and violence of the regime. The main characters include a jailer who guards the Taliban's victims and a female lawyer who chafes under the regime's sexist oppression.

The book is full of memorable details and scenes, such as a colorfully portrayed group of disabled war veterans who congregate around a mosque. Khadra's prose is at times grotesque, at times poetic. We see the hopes and frustrations of the individual characters. And we also see the possibility of compassion and redemption in a world of brutality, suffering, and injustice. As an American soldier, I served in Afghanistan and was deeply touched by the tragedy and beauty of that land and its people; I thank both the author and translator of this book for bringing this moving tale to life.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Misery . . ., May 20, 2006

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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

The reference to swallows in the title of this remarkable novel is to the burqa-clad women of Afghanistan during the years of the Taliban. Swathed in fabric from head to toe, they have been forced from public life and, as much as possible, rendered invisible, to preserve their "purity" and the honor of their families. The French-Algerian author, Khadra, heightens the incomprehensibility of this kind of faith-based segregation of genders even further by beginning and ending his story with the public executions of two women, one for alleged adultery and the other for the alleged murder of her husband.

Between these two incidents, the story follows the daily lives of several characters living out lives of soul-crushing misery in the doomed and ruined city of Kabul. There is a jail keeper, a university-educated man, an aged man who dreams of escape, and a Kalashnikov-carrying militiaman who turns a blind eye to the inhumanity he witnesses and looks only for opportuniies to advance his own career. It is a violent, Orwellian world where empathy has died and only the self-serving survive.

Both spare and unsparing, Khadra's writing brings to mind the stark, unsentimental vision of Camus' "The Stranger." The book is a bleak portrayal of exteme Islamic fundamentalism and as such seems intended as a heart-rending call of compassion for those in war-devastated regions, who are trapped by its worst excesses.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptionally Well Done, October 6, 2004

By 

Richard R. Carlton (Ada, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Swallows of Kabul: A Novel (Hardcover)

Khandra's books are simple with multiple levels of perception. More importantly, they are masterfully wordsmithed (the over-used term is well earned in this case). These are the kind of books that haunt you for years as they become part of your psyche.....and you see parallels to the writing all around you.......the writing truly provides you with a new perception of your own life.

Here are all the books to date, with a bit of info on each:

Swallows of Kabul (2004)
A bit hit in France, this story of 2 couples and their attempts to cope with the rule of the Taliban is mesmerizing.

Wolf Dreams (2003) 3rd of an Algerian trilogy
A story of a Moslem Jihadi, from sweet boy to fanatic fundamentalist has been recommended for insight into the driving force of suicidist youngsters.

Morituri (2003) 2nd of an Algerian trilogy
An Algerian kidnaping story that provides a compelling look at the definition of crime in a permanently impoverished society.

In The Name Of God (2000) 1st of an Algerian trilogy
A look at the phenomena of Moslem fundamentalism in Algeria, this book has strong parallels to Camu's "The Plague." In some ways it is a more modern variation on a theme of Camu's work.