The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra
Kabul under the Taliban, a devastated city ruled by executioners and crows, where laughing in public brings down the wrath of the religious police. This is the world in which Yasmina Khadra – a pseudonym of a former officer in the Algerian army – sets his cauterizing novel of fanaticism and tenderness.
With an implacable eye, Khadra follows two couples: Mohsen and Zunaira are dispirited surviors of Afghanistan’s educated middle class; Atiq is a brutish jailer bound by a debt of gratitude to his dying wife, Musarrat. One day the horrified Mohsen finds himself taking part in the stoning of a condemned prostitute, an action that will impel all four characters toward new destinies. As spare as carved bone and filled with images that explode like bombs, The Swallows of Kabul is a work of haunting power.
“I found this book affected me on 2 different levels. One was in the vast difference between the way we live here in North America and the horrors that people face on a daily basis in other parts of the world. I can’t imagine what it would be like for a woman to live in a place where you have almost no rights at all. I was also struck by how people can overcome their circumstances to show such strength and tenderness for each other. These people are stripped of everything and yet they still try to maintain their sense of human decency.
While this book takes place in a bleak setting the imagery and the gentle writing makes it a difficult book to put down.” – Review by Kelly
The Swallows of Kabul is available at London Drugs.
