A Thousand Rooms of Dreams and Fear [Hardcover]

Atiq Rahimi (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0701176733 | ISBN-13: 978-0701176730 | Publication Date: September 26, 2006

The extraordinary work of the Afghan writer Atiq Rahimi allows us a rare insight into Afghanistan. After Earth and Ashes (published around the world and made into a feature film) comes this amazing short novel about an Afghan student seeking freedom from politics and religious fundamentalism.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Fiction can express pain and suffering as little else can, as in this slim novel set in Afghanistan in October 1979, a time between coups and the Soviet invasion. Narrator Farhad, a 21-year-old university student in Kabul, goes out drinking with a friend, forgets the curfew and password, and is apprehended by jackbooted soldiers who beat and kick him, leaving him unconscious in a sewer. Mahnaz, the widowed mother of a young son (her husband was jailed as a political prisoner and executed), takes him into her home. What might seem a simple, compassionate act is not only brave, exposing Mahnaz to danger when the returning soldiers search for the student, but also prohibited by the Muslim culture. Farhad, hallucinating and between life and death, stays for days with a woman without a husband and sees not only her hair but also her breast, as she offers her milk to her brother, a young man traumatized by repeated military torture. In prose that is spare and incisive, poetic and searing, prizewinning Afghani author Rahimi, who fled his native land in 1984, captures the distress of his people. --Michele Leber --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Review

“The language has the rhythm of a Sufi prayer; the novel offers an insight into the deepest fears of the people of Afghanistan.”—Los Angeles Times

“That sense of losing one’s identity, of being subsumed by a greater, if illogical, power, is a key theme in Atiq Rahimi’s taut, layered novel…A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear is the intimate narrative…of an entire desperate, anguished country.” —Washington Post

“An intensely intimate portrait of a man (and by extension his country) questioning reality and the limits of the possible…full of elegant evocations…A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear resonates deeply because, no doubt, Rahimi has written a true and sad account, but the story could easily be that of any other Afghan, of any other denizen of this modern, anarchic state. In the end, we are left to wonder whether Rahimi has presented us with a story, a dream, or a nightmare, though it is likely all three.”—Words Without Borders

“Rahimi’s tale of confused nationality, indiscriminate punishment, desperate survival, and no clear way to safety depicts decades-old events, but it feels especially poignant amid the US-led war in Afghanistan that’s spanned the greater part of the past decade.” —Flavorwire

“An original and utterly personal account of the pressures a totalitarian society exerts on the individual in 1979 Afghanistan, before the Soviet invasion… A flawless translation does justice to Rahimi’s taut, highly calibrated prose.” —Publishers Weekly

“In prose that is spare and incisive, poetic and searing, prizewinning Afghani author Rahimi, who fled his native land in 1984, captures the distress of his people.”—Booklist, starred review
 
“Rahimi is an author known for his unflinching examination of his home country as much as the experimental styles in which he writes… A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear takes risks in its structure…But Rahimi’s carefully-controlled new novel exploits these uncertainties, joining the past to the present and legend with fact, creating an appropriately surreal narrative, one that rings through with truth.” —ForeWord Magazine

“A taut and brilliant burst of anguished prose....both a wonderful and a dreadful little book.” —The Guardian

“A beautiful piece of writing.” —Ruth Pavey, The Independent

“Short but powerful...The beauty of the language lends this work a haunting clarity.” —The Herald

“The novella is verbal photography...[it] seems the real thing...seamlessly translated.” —Russell Celyn Jones, The London Times --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Chatto & Windus (September 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0701176733
• ISBN-13: 978-0701176730
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,762,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A quirky but engaging novella about repression in Afghanistan, 1970s style, September 18, 2010

By 

Ursiform (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Thousand Rooms of Dreams and Fear (Hardcover)

This (novella-length) book is written in a stream-of-consciousness style, even though it begins with the narrator emerging from unconsciousness. Unconsciousness, induced by a beating from soldiers after a night of drinking, starts to be replaced with an admixture of memory and hallucination, evolving into sensation and hallucination, then consciousness with occasional hallucination, and finally true awareness.

There is no effective way to describe the narrator's thought evolution without giving away the plot. Suffice it to say that the plot elucidates briefly, as the length of the work requires, the constraints on freedom and human life imposed by the more extreme interpretations of Islam.

While never feeling that I was in the presence of great literature, the story moved along and kept me reading. The author is clever if not profound, and this book is a quick way to get a sense of life in a strict Islamist society. (While emphasizing that not everyone voluntarily conforms to the standard of such a society.)

If the general topic interests you this novella is worth reading.

I was provided a copy for review by the publisher.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking Look at Another World, April 21, 2011

By 

Literate Housewife "Jennifer" (Roanoke, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear (Hardcover)

When Jenn and Nicole announced their Book Club, I was excited to participate. Their first selection was A Thousand Rooms of Dreams and Fear by Atiq Rahimi and published by Other Press. The cover is beautiful and the premise, a young man on the run from the Afghani government in 1979 was even more intriguing. It is a short book, but don't let that fool you. It is a deep and intense reading experience.

When we first meet Farhad, he believes he is dying in his room and he cannot get his family to hear or help him. His mind runs to his fears of the afterlife and he tries to dispel the ghosts he believes are torturing him by using the superstitious prayers his grandfather taught him. What he doesn't remember was the beating he received the night before, out on the streets. Slowly, his situation and his unfamiliar location become clear to him. Then, new fears and worries take hold.

There was definitely something lost in the translation with Rahimi's novel. First, I'm not from the same or even similar cultures or religious traditions, so I could almost feel subtext and dialog fly over my head. Also, I believe there was a lot of beauty in the author's writing that is missed by English speaking readers. There was something about the structure that made me feel that way. It's not that I took issue with the translators themselves. There are just some differences in languages that can't be translated.

For all the cultural distance, I could very much relate to Farhad on a personal level. His gut reaction to imminent death is the strongest example. My religious views have been in conflict since I moved away from home, if not even before. With the current exception of attending Mass (mostly) weekly and seeing to my daughters' religious education, there's nothing else there. Despite the fact that I can't much be motivated to do much more than provide my children some semblance of religious tradition within my day to day life, I would worry about going to hell if I thought the end was nigh. We're worlds apart, Farhad and me, but his experience shed light on my own soul.

A Thousand Rooms of Dreams and Fear is a book I may not have otherwise read had it not been for Book Club. I am glad that I had the opportunity to read outside of my ordinary selections. I read it at the perfect time in my life, making it a rewarding read. I don't know that this is a novel for everyone, but it certainly made an impact on me.

4.0 out of 5 stars A look inside war-torn Afghanistan, June 17, 2011

By 

Gwendolyn Dawson "Literary License" (Houston, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear (Hardcover)

In Kabul in 1979 Farhad, a 21-year-old university student, is out after curfew to celebrate a friend's imminent escape to Pakistan. After suffering a vicious beating by soldiers on patrol, a mysterious and brave woman rescues the unconscious Farhad from the sewer. A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear consists of Farhad's splintered memories and dreams mixed with his brief moments of lucidity as Fahad slowly returns to awareness. A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear is a disturbing and masterful depiction of the harrowing circumstances suffered by both men and women in war-torn Afghanistan.