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Swallows of Kabul

By Yasmina Khadra

(10)

| Paperback | 9780099466024

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Book Description

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 allContinue

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.

Critics

  • Water lilies in the swamp

    The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra, translated by John Cullen 195pp, Heinemann, £10.99 Yasmina Khadra is the pseudonym of a former Algerian army officer named Mohamed Mou-lessehoul. He was still in post when he wrote his first novel, so publishe ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

  • The Swallows of Kabul By Yasmina Khadra

    Lest there remain any doubt that Afghanistan under the Taliban was a place barely fit for human habitation, Yasmina Khadra's spellbinding new novel, The Swallows of Kabul, removes it once and for all. The story begins with the scene of a prostitute b ... (read full critics)

    bookpage published on Sat, 11 Sep 2010

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9780099466024 Paperback -- $10.91 ebooks.com
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