The Bookseller of Kabul was written by the Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad and published in 2002. The version I'm reviewing is the translation by Ingrid Christopherson, which was published a year later, in 2003, by Back Bay Books. ** Synopsis ** In November 2001, Seierstad entered Kabul for the first time, having spent six weeks in Afghanistan's border regions following the commanders of the Northern Alliance in their offensive against the Taliban. One of the first people she got talking to was a 50-something bookseller named Sultan Khan, who ran a small chain of shops in the city. After striking up a friendship with him and being ...  Read the complete review

I've read a few books about Afghanistan and its people during its troubled times which has evoked all sorts of emotions from sadness, anger, grief and heart break. However, the books that I have read have merely been based on facts from writers such as Khaled Hosseini who wrote "The Kite Runner" and the brilliant "A Thousand Splendid Suns." This book from Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad deals purely in facts, which - quite obviously - gives a considerable amount of realism, shock and intrigue to the events and characters in which she describes. ** About the authors experience and the story of the 'Khans'... Although ...  Read the complete review

Although I really enjoyed this book and think it is very well written it took me quite a while to read it. Knowing it was based on fact made a lot of the things I was reading quite difficult to read. Although I have often been told about the conditions in Afghanistan and the fact that women are by and large not treated as equal it seemed worse here as I got to know the characters. Sultan Khan - in real life he was Shah Muhammad Rais - runs a bookstore in Kabul and is prepared to take risks to allow the customers to own books that the state would not approve of. From the beginning I got the impression that he was a local hero but my illusions were soon ...  Read the complete review

A Bookseller in Kabul does not make for easy reading, it is a rather uncomfortable book to read especially in light of the current war effort in the country and the loss of life that such a conflict brings to all involved. Asne Seierstad is a Norwegian journalist who during 2002 got to live with Sultan Khan a bookseller in Kabul for a four month period. Through this experience she got a unique insight into Afghani culture basing the story on interviews and conversations with membersof the family, now these are quite an educated family and relatively well off in Afghani terms and Abdul claims to have been persecuted over the years both by the Russians and then ...  Read the complete review