The Booksellerof Kabul

Norwegian journalist, Åsne Seierstad, wrote this non-fiction work that reads like a novel after living with a bookseller and his family in Kabul for three months in 2002. It is a stinging indictment of the role of women in Afghan society. The bookseller, Sultan Khan (not his real name), is considered a liberal Afghani. The women in his household are not made to wear the burqa; he did jail time for selling books that were banned by the Taliban. Yet he discarded his loyal wife of 16 years to take a 16 year old bride. Leila, his unmarried sister is a virtual slave to the family. His sons are denied an education and instead are forced to work in his stores. He has a poor carpenter with numerous dependents jailed for stealing some postcards from his shop. It is this dichotomy that Seierstad explores. She portrays the bookseller as a tyrant and everyone in his family, male and female, as unhappy. He and his family hold a different view of the situation and the real life Sultan Khan, Shah Rais, is suing the author for misrepresenting his household and doing damage to his reputation. It's a fascinating read. Having read the Rais family's rebuttal I'm still trying to decide whether Khan is the monster portrayed in the novel or if Seierstad simply failed to grasp the complexities of Afghan society.