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Title: The Swallows of Kabul : A Novel by YASMINA KHADRA ISBN: 0-385-51001-2 Publisher: Nan A. Talese Pub. Date: 17 February, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Swallows of Kabul.....An astonishing work
Comment: A sad, painful, haunting novel by Yasmina Khadra.
This is the story of 4 people who live in Kabul: A Kabul that has degenerated into an urban economic and psychological wasteland under the Taliban.
Then one event changes the course of the lives of these 4 people: bringing them into contact with one another and making all of them reflect and focus not only on the past but also what is happening to their somewhat "safe" present existence.
The narrative is powerful, the story is exquisitely told. It will keep you turning the pages until you reach the conclusion.
Highly recommended
Rating: 2
Summary: Keep looking
Comment: I heard an interview with the author on NPR which piqued my interest in this story. I requested it at my local library. When I curled up to read, I was shocked and actually appalled by the first sentence, which I'll reproduce here: "In the middle of nowhere, a whirlwind spins like a sorceress flinging out her skirts in a macabre dance; yet not even this hysteria serves to blow the dust off the calcified palm trees thrust against the sky like beseeching arms" (1). If this sentence doesn't make you roll your eyes and check your calendar to see if it's overuse of adjectives and bad similie day, then you may like this book. I don't know if it's was "lost in translation," but I couldn't get past the distracted writing.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Corruption of the Spirit
Comment: This weekend I was able to read two books that take place in Kabul, Afghanistan. The first, "The Swallows of Kabul," and the second, "The Bookseller of Kabul." The first is a novel, the second a work of non-fiction; the first concurrent with the reign of the Taliban, the second post-Taliban. Together they provide an interesting look at the horrors of religious fundamentalism in both its extreme and slightly more moderate aspects.
"The Swallows of Kabul," by Yasmina Khadra, an Algerian who writes in French and lives in Mexico, is a deep look into the minds of four main characters who suffer the psychological horrors of living through the era of the Taliban, and to read this book is to know the Taliban and the evil they have wrought.
"Taliban" is translated as "religious students," but they are religious psychopaths. They were organized to fight the Russians during their occupation of Afghanistan, and then to wage civil war against rival "mujahideen" - "holy warriors." The Taliban reached the height of their power between 1996 and 2001 when they were driven to the hills by the American forces reacting to 9/11.
In an effort to eradicate Western values in Afghanistan the Taliban instituted a regime marked by anti-pleasure (read "anti-life") extremism. They were initially accepted by the citizenry as a corrective to the political corruption of the previous regime, but what they accomplished was a corruption of the spirit of a citizenry made fragile by years of war. The Taliban were (and are) militantly anti-democratic, anti-art, even anti-kite-flying misogynists who ruled through fear, torture, and public execution.
I can't speak to Mr. Khadra's French, but his translator has provided us with an English version that is readable if not as poetic as it tries to be. What holds the book together is the insight Mr. Khadra brings to the ravages of the soul brought about by extreme Islamic fundamentalism, and the translation though a bit clunky does not unsalvageably mar Mr. Khadra's efforts.
I believe literature that strives to be great art is marked by its characters' pull toward redemption. "The Swallows of Kabul," is a plea for the redemption of the individual as well as the Afghan society - it's a shame it will be little read in the society about which it was written.
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Title: Wolf Dreams by Yasmina Khadra ISBN: 1902881753 Publisher: The Toby Press LLC Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini ISBN: 1573222453 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 29 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad ISBN: 0316734500 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi ISBN: 081297106X Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 30 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Brick Lane: A Novel by Monica Ali ISBN: 0743243307 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 09 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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