The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra, John Cullen (Translator)

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(Paperback - Reprint)

  • Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
  • Pub. Date: April 2005
  • ISBN-13: 9781400033768
  • Sales Rank: 38,999
  • 195pp
  • Edition Description: Reprint
 
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Synopsis

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.

The New York Times

Yasmina Khadra — whose previous books have chronicled Algeria's savage civil war, pitting Islamic fundamentalists against the armybacked government — is intimately familiar with the consequences that war and religious extremism have on people's daily lives, and in this book he gives the reader a tactile sense of what life under the Taliban might have been like. — Michiko Kakutani

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Biography

Yasmina Khadra is actually the nom de plume of Algerian army officer Mohammed Moulessehoul -- who took on the feminine pseudonym to avoid submitting his manuscripts for approval by military censors while he was still in the army. “Yasmina Khadra’s Kabul is hell on earth, a place of hunger, tedium, and stifling fear,” observes J. M. Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature.

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Customer Reviews

Okayby Anonymous

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April 14, 2008: I am sorry I disagree, I thought the book was just okay, it bored me until over half way through the middle of the book. The ending was good but sad and tragic.

Emmotionally Driven and a wonderful bookby Anonymous

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July 05, 2006: I will have to disagree with the previous reviewer who believes the books shows 'what happens to wives who disobey their husbands.' In reality the book demonstrates what happens when husbands refuse to listen to their wives. Atiq loses his last chance at happiness because he does not reveal his heart's desire like Mussarat told him to. And Mohsen's death and humiliation are caused by his refusal to listen to Zunaira's depiction of the bleak streeets of Kabul. He has even seen this himself, but like Atiq refuses to accept what he has become and what Kabul has become. This book was very interesting and insightful. It started out a bit slow after the intial execution with the inner thoughs of the characters, but it was a wonderful story to read. I could actually picture these characters and the obstacles they faced everyday just by going outside and choosing to live or work within the Taliban's chaotic society. For anyone wondering what life was like in Kabul under the Taliban this is a wonderful reference source, even though it is a novel.


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