The Swallows of Kabul

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.

Review :
"Yasmina Khadra's Kabul is hell on earth, a place of hunger, tedium, and stifling fear." -J. M. Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature "I am so grateful that the "The Swallows of Kabul" has been written, and written with such relentless poetry and passion. The reality of life under a rule such as the Taliban's makes us despair not only of the land that could tolerate such horror, but also of the world that for so long kept silent about it. However, the way that reality is narrated and ultimately redefined by Yasmina Khadra once more proves the power of fiction to turn our despair into hope, to restore our stolen sense of dignity and humanity and to desire life when death seems to be the safest refuge." -Azar Nafisi, author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" ""The Swallows of Kabul" is reminiscent of "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress," It is a gem in world literature-poetic, intimate, and poignant-painting a beautiful yet sorrowful landscape of a people and their turbulent lives, lived and lamented in a forgotten land. A must read." -Da Chen, author of "China's Son: Growing Up in the Cultural Revolution" "Disturbing and mesmerizing, the beautifully written "Swallows" puts a human face on the suffering inflicted by the Taliban." -"San Francisco Chronicle" "[A] chilling portrait of fundamentalism run amok and its fallout on ordinary people who want only to go about their mundane lives." -"The New York Times" "[L]yrical, heartbreaking.... This book is a masterpiece of misery.... It is a harsh but eloquent indictment of those who stood by and allowed the brutal Taliban regime to thrive." -"Newsweek" "[A] surprisingly tenderbook....[Khadra] writes as a kind of village sage, a war veteran whose tales compel passers-by to stop and listen.... Khadra belongs in the ranks of those writers-J.M. Coetzee, for example-who make violence into art." -"The New York Times Book Review" "Khadra's prose is gentle and precise....[He] makes a powerful point." -"The New Yorker"