The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
Little, Brown, £7.99, pp.256

It is not surprising that Seierstad chose to recount Sultan’s tumultuous tale as his charisma transcends dedication to creative passion. For something so easily obtainable in the west like an eclectic mix of literature, risking your life for it is hard to comprehend. Sultan is unfazed by the Taliban as he fights to have the west’s egalitarian press and thus stoically stomachs his prized collection being burnt. While reading this we picture him as an unwavering stalwart like Baba from The kite Runner in the way that he stands strong in the face of brutality. However we swiftly discover that due to not being fictitious like Baba he’s prone to serious contradictions. This is illustrated in that despite jeopardising his life for literature he pushes his long suffering mother of his children into submission. With his yearning for a younger wife he turns his beautiful doting wife into someone that has ‘lost her radiance’. It causes her beautiful eyes that once he described as ‘the most lovely in Kabul’ to be ‘encircled by heavy lids’ as she feeds the gossiping public an alibi about being unable to lie with her husband. As Sultan’s flaws appear it becomes abundantly clear why Seierstad didn’t use real names which is backed up from The Observer doubting whether this book will ‘get onto the shelves of Mr Khan’s shop‘. Nevertheless when we discover the Taliban caused Sultan’s two stints in jail as he showed fortitude to promote free speech it rallies the reader, particularly if you live in a town where many simply exist.

If Seierstad had depicted Sultan Khan as a passive aggressive Braveheart figure of unflinching justice, the book would have no way nearly been as enthralling. This book brims as the surface with intrigue due to the protagonist’s complexities. On the one hand he is a militant patriarch reaping the benefits of selling sisters. As the reader you feel disgust that Sultan so dispassionately fobs his sister off for pittance with an ’arrogant, slightly uninterested expression’. On the other he’s an admirable entrepreneur who goes out on a limb to provide children with objective textbooks. He works hard to abolish textbooks that have the alphabet being drummed into kids in violent terms like ’k is for Kalashnikov’. As westerners with a scope of creative outlets we are particularly drawn in by Sultan’s staunch views when he ’thunders’ lines like ’u’ll never again hear music, never dance again’, after hearing Taliban support. This is after previously feeling disgusted by Sultan not only condoning the savage beating of sixteen year old Saliqa for simply meeting a young pauper in a taxi but calling her a prostitute.

As the horror stories of female abuse become more shocking it is difficult to read on. Seierstad doesn’t spare any details as she recounts Jamilla’s despicable killing by none other than her brothers on strict orders from her mother. The manner in which the tales distort through close knit neighbourhood conjures up parallels in tennis club speculation from English housewives. We begin to take to stock of our relative peace as we feel guilty for agonizing over western quandaries of early debt and bewilderment. It is easy from our western perspective to be horrified by the lack of pride of aging suitors pursuing girls as young as thirteen. In particular Sultan’s brother Yunus being thirty and courting thirteen year old Belquisa despite her parents suggesting Belqisa’s twenty year old sister. However it raises the debate of whether there would be such a battle with paedophilia within positions of authority and internet viewing if we adopted their policy. As readers we are stirred by the regime dehumanising women by not allowing them to not utilize their intelligence. As we follow the plight of Sultan’s sister Shakila having to postpone her burgeoning teaching career while the Taliban suppress her gender. Seierstad’s economical use of language and matter of fact tone amplifies the effect. Which is illustrated when she writes ‘a woman’s longing for love is taboo’.

The only section that feels drawn out is when Seierstad goes into major detail about printing and publishing. Perhaps the book could have benefited from Seierstad involving herself as a character because it would have evoked fascinating behaviour and insights from Sultan’s family. The fact that she could act as a social chameleon and didn’t have the restrictions of Afghani women is an indication that her presence as a character would have lit up the page. Public attitude to her would have been unexpected and interesting because they viewed her as a ‘bi-gendered woman‘ and she was from a polarized culture. Seierstad conveys that her presence prompted intrigue in that she was unable to commandeer answers as they would ‘spontaneously’ arise from questions she ‘wouldn’t have had the imagination to ask’.

The book seller from Kabul most certainly is worth a read as even the descriptions of the scenery and landscape are as captivating as much as the study of the culture. This is illustrated when Seierstad vividly writes about the paths between Afghanistan and Pakistan describing them as routes for smugglers for ‘opiates and coca cola’. like many opinionated, driven individuals Sultan holds your attention constantly, which illustrates why this book was a best seller across northern Europe. It broadens the reader by raising fascinating debates about nature over nurture, morality and gender issues. As it causes the reader to ask themselves how they would react in those circumstances, which hopefully will cause prejudice and superiority notions of our nation to dissipate.


Bibliography

Tim Judah, The Observer, Sunday 31st December
I Looked at various culture magazines that come with the independent.

This is intended to be from the culture magazine that comes with the Independent