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New York Times

A Book About War-Torn Afghanistan That Reads Like a Novel

THE AFGHANS: Three Lives Through War, Love, and Revolt, by Asne Seierstad; translated by Seán Kinsella Afghanistan has largely disappeared from the news since the Taliban took over in August 2021, in a victory that restored the restrictive Islamic movement to power, humiliated the United States and crushed Afghan women who had embraced the Western notion that they could follow their dreams. In light of this neglect, Asne Seierstad's new book, 'The Afghans,' is a valuable addition to the canon of literature on the country. A Norwegian journalist who has published several other books set in war-torn countries, including the best-selling 'The Bookseller of Kabul' (2003), Seierstad writes compellingly, with an eye for the details and dialogue that make her subjects come to life. She manages to achieve a rare intimacy, something that is tough in a book about Afghanistan, a place where outsiders are seldom allowed inside homes and most men don't speak the names of their wives publicly. But her book also raises questions about how she constructs her narrative nonfiction. At nearly 430 pages, 'The Afghans' is a sprawling epic focused largely on three figures whose lives Seierstad recounts with vivid granularity: Jamila, a high-powered women's advocate; Bashir, a Taliban commander; and Ariana, a young law student (Seierstad has changed her name to protect her privacy). Through their stories, the book also traces the country's complicated recent history — from the Soviet invasion of 1979 through an American-backed insurgency, civil war, the initial rise of the Taliban, the return of the United States and its allies after 9/11, and, finally, the restoration of the Taliban after the U.S. withdrawal in 2021. For nearly 20 years, between 2001 and 2021, Western intervention created a unique laboratory in Afghanistan's major cities, primarily in Kabul, the capital, for testing what a version of democracy could mean in a country where the Taliban had banned women from the public sphere and required everyone to conform to their vision of a strict Islamic way of life. Women shed burqas and joined the work force. Boys dressed in Western clothes, watched Bollywood movies and hoped to build a new Afghanistan. Girls started school. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.