An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan [Hardcover]

Jason Elliot (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1999

This text brings together anecdotes gathered by the author during his time as a freedom fighter and traveller in Afghanistan. Combining stories from Soviet veterans, sufi practitioners, and views on sacred art, this book provides an insight into Afghan life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An account of a trip through war-torn and poverty-stricken Afghanistan, this remarkable book could have been titled "An Unexpected Beauty." Elliot, who first traveled to the country as a 19-year-old enthusiast of the mujahedin, has no illusions about the inherent shortcomings of travel writing ("a semi-fictional collection of descriptions that affirm the prejudices of the day"). He also dismisses the journalistic method, which relies on a single bombed-out street in Kabul to monolithically represent an entire nation. So it is not without some self-deprecation that he offers his own strange and improbable adventures in the country's lawless stretches and perilous mountain passes. "I had in mind a quietly epic sort of journey," he explains. "I had given up on earlier and more ambitious schemes and was prepared to make an ally of uncertainty, with which luck so often finds a partnership." Humorous, honest and wry, a devotee of Afghanistan's culture, Elliot strives to debunk the myth of "the inscrutability of the East" and paint, in careful detail, a portrait of a deeply spiritual people. For a first-time author, his literary talents are exceptional. His sonorous prose moves forward with the purposeful grace of a river; it reads like a text unearthed from an ancient land. (Feb.) Forecast: Already lauded in England, this book announces the arrival of a major travel writer. It should capture the hearts of armchair travelers who long for the grace, wit and irreverence of an era long gone.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This extraordinary debut is an account of Elliot's two visits to Afghanistan. The first occurred when he joined the mujaheddin circa 1979 and was smuggled into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan; the second happened nearly ten years later, when he returned to the still war-torn land. The skirmishes that Elliot painstakingly describes here took place between the Taliban and the government of Gen. Ahmad Shah Massoud in Kabul. Today, the Taliban are in power, but Elliot's sympathies clearly lie with Massoud. Although he thought long and hard before abandoning his plan to travel to Hazara territory, where "not a chicken could cross that pass without being fired on," Elliot traveled widely in the hinterland, visiting Faizabad in the north and Herat in the west. The result is some of the finest travel writing in recent years. With its luminous descriptions of the people, the landscape (even when pockmarked by landmines), and Sufism, this book has all the hallmarks of a classic, and it puts Elliot in the same league as Robert Byron and Bruce Chatwin. Enthusiastically recommended for all travel collections.DRavi Shenoy, Naperville P.L., IL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 473 pages
• Publisher: Macmillan (November 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330371614
• ISBN-13: 978-0330371612
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,151,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Afghanistan's Conscience in the West, October 2, 2000

By 

Daniel J. Rose (Shrewsbury, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan (Hardcover)

Of the currently posted reviews, it is interesting that they either rate this book at the top or at the bottom of the rating scale. This is a sign that the book elicits much more comment on the reviewer's state of mind than on the book itself. My review will be no different.

While I second those who extoll the book's poetry and its vivid portrayal of the Afghan land and culture, to me the real value of the book lies in its deepest appeal to the conscience (or lack of conscience) in the reader. Mr. Elliot's report is unique in that it covers two or three visits that he undertook that span the time during and after the Soviet war, just prior to Taleban occupation of Kabul and the roughly 90% of Afghanistan that it occupies today.

During this time, under extremely difficult circumstances, Mr. Elliot had access to people and places that would shortly be cut off and, in many cases, destroyed during the ensuing Taleban onslaught. The result, both of the circumstances and Mr. Elliot's reporting on them, is a tale filled with longing--a longing for some of what is, much of what was and has been lost, and what may never be recovered, an innocence and deeply human sympathy ravaged by the cynicism of the world.

Afghanistan was never an easy place to live, but it was long a place where humanity reigned supreme in the daily lives of common people. Some have called it the height of civilization, low-tech though it was. It had long been the seat of a kind of basic (and advanced) hospitality that has been all but lost, though much imitated, in much of the rest of the world. Elliot's deep love and intimate knowledge of these people and the remaining remnants of their culture informs every page of his vivid account.

In the end, he leaves those of us with the conscience to respond with a deep sense of loss, yet with a vivid picture of hope for the future of our common human destiny. Yes, he makes us want to visit what was once Afghanistan, the Land of the Free. But even more, he makes us accutely aware of the Jewel that has been lost and that we must all find again to restore the vital center of our own particular human culture where we happen to live, among the common people of our daily lives.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like Newby, Murphy, Asher, Thesiger? Then here's your man!, July 24, 2000

By 

Richard L. Wilson (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan (Hardcover)

An extraordinary book that transcends the bounds of travelogue and gives us deep and personal insight into one of the most the world's most inaccessible regions. Elliot's Afghan friends and travel companions convey, in the midst of the grief and difficulty of war, an enviable warmth and humor that has made the country a favorite of travelers for decades before the Soviet invasion. There are many hair raising trips in overloaded trucks over vertiginous mountain passes, lavish descriptions of ruins seldom seen by westerners, and intriguing historical facts from this crossroads of peoples for the traveler, adventurer and historian. Elliot writes from the heart and out of love for the Afghan people and land and this shines through on every page more than any such book I've read since Thesiger's Arabian Sands (and upon inspection, even Thesiger's motives begin to seem cloudy compared with Elliott's affection and respect for his subjects). You will put this book down with a profound respect for the Afghan people and immense desire to visit this land... I cannot recommend this book highly enough - if you read it you will soon find yourself searching through old travel guides and looking for a way to travel the roads of Afghanistan first hand.

41 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding, July 25, 2001

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan (Hardcover)

Afghanistan's current inaccessibility to Westerners presents a paradox of sorts: on the one hand, travelogues have a long tradition of providing armchair portraits of countries and people not easy visited, and on the other hand, in extreme cases such as contemporary Afghanistan, the difficulties in moving into and around such a country make such travelogues all the rarer. We should be therefore be grateful for this book, in which Jason Elliot recounts his travels and impressions from a trip made in 1979 as a teenager, and a trip 20 years later when he had learned Persian. It's a very traditional and endearing piece of travel literature, full of evocative descriptions of the sights and sounds, and most importantly, the people. While the book has plenty of the other usual travelogue elements-detailed descriptions of perilous trips in overstuffed decrepit vehicles, beautiful descriptions of obscure but astonishing ancient ruins, digestible tidbits of history, and asides of longing for unattainable women-the book's greatest value comes from Elliot's sensitive treatment of the Afghans he meets and befriends. Far from being the religious totalitarianists commonly associated with the country, virtually everyone he meets-almost every one of whom is male-is unstintingly curious, tough, enduring, and most of all, warmly hospitable. When he does encounter the Taliban, he notes how other Afghans warily regard them as powerful outsiders, with no constituency save themselves. Indeed, Elliot, writing in 1999, seems to scoff at the notion of them ever controlling the entire country, as their brand of Islam is so at odds with the forms widely practiced in Afghanistan over history. Elliot spends a fair amount of time and effort in trying to get to various Sufi shrines, and he does a good job of trying to explain the mystical nature of Sufism.

The book does suffer a little bit from Elliot's going back and forth between his two visits, and occasionally one loses track as to which visit an anecdote dates from, but the perspective he gains from having traveled in the country twenty years apart more than makes up for it. Elliot vividly conveys the troubles the Soviet forces had in the war, as well as the classic guerilla tactics used by the Afghans. He takes great pains to point out that the Afghan resistance was not a religiously based one, despite the connotation the word "mujaheddin" has taken in the West, but another struggle in a long succession of resisting incursions by more powerful states. What also emerges from almost every Afghan mouth is a sentiment of having been "abandoned" by America following the Soviet withdrawal. He makes no direct judgment on the matter himself, but like any good reporter, lets the people speak for themselves. In the end, one is left lamenting the destruction of Afghanistan during its tenure as proxy Cold War battleground, and the resultant forces that have allowed the Taliban to impose their will-a least for the moment. If only one thing is totally clear from their history, it is that the Afghan people will only live so long under the yoke of oppressors.