By Christopher Kremmer
AFGHANISTAN
The Afghans: Three Lives through War, Love and Revolt
Asne Seierstad
Virago, $34.99
Once upon a time, long ago, a Norwegian journalist, Asne Seierstad, wrote a non-fiction book about life in Afghanistan during the so-called War on Terror. The Bookseller of Kabul became a global bestseller. Now, almost a quarter of a century later, and having written several well-received tomes about extremism of various kinds, including One of Us – about the Norwegian right-wing mass murderer Anders Breivik – Seierstad has returned to where it all began with a new book, The Afghans.
A Taliban fighter and women lined up for food rations in Kabul in 2023.Credit: AP
Last time she wrote about the country, the Taliban were fleeing for their lives. Now, they own Afghanistan, where power still grows from the gun-barrel, and women’s right to education and work are circumscribed. In the interim, the intrepid reporter has pursued important questions in dangerous places, from Iraq to Chechnya.
Seierstad’s mission now is to expose the disappointments and contradictions of life under Taliban rule by focusing on three main individuals. The first, Jamila Afghani, is a widely respected disabled advocate for the rights of women and children under the new regime. The second is a young female law student, “Ariana”, struggling to complete her degree under the Islamists’ corrupt and incompetent rule, while being forced into an unwanted arranged marriage. The third main character is “Bashir”, an Islamist militia leader.
The Afghans is a deeper book about Afghanistan than The Bookseller of Kabul.
This is a deeper, more considered book than The Bookseller of Kabul, which was a somewhat opportunistic project in which the author moved in with an Afghan family and proceeded to catalogue the inherent misogyny of the eponymous bookseller, Shah Muhammad Rais. He disowned Seierstad’s version of his life, sued for defamation and later fled Afghanistan for fear of his reputation and life.
In The Afghans, the diversity of the interviewees provides a more nuanced portrait, in which women are not exclusively portrayed as victims. The story opens with the birth of a girl who later could not walk, just another victim of polio. But Jamila would eventually will herself to walk, and for the rest of her life she would struggle against the ignorance of those who considered disability a punishment by God.
She would ignore the jibes of “langak” (cripple) in a country where only one in 10 people were literate. She would demand education when her own parents could not see the point, and eventually, she would marry, even though a disabled woman in Afghanistan carries no bride price. And as her status grew, she would be recognised as an Islamic scholar who could correct the Taliban mullahs on matters of theology.
There is much lovely writing in this book, facilitated by Seierstad’s empathy with and access to Afghan women, who are severely oppressed by a combination of tradition, ignorance and violence. However, the structure of three central characters spawns a swamp of many offshoots that is, at times, hard to follow, a problem compounded by the translation from Norwegian into English. Too many lengthy compound sentences had me re-reading the text to make sense of it.
Taliban leaders reflect on the 10th anniversary last year of the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the founder of the Taliban.Credit: AP
Sadly, the author’s attempts to provide historical context felt stale, on the one hand, and excessive on the other. Providing a few footnotes, of which there are none, could have provided a more discursive solution to the problem. Instead, Seierstad provides a list of song titles, including a couple of Justin Bieber hits treasured by Afghan girls. Kooky, but kind of nice when you think about it.
Norwegian journalist and author Asne Seierstad.
Reading this book, it was difficult to avoid comparison with the late Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, which was lauded by critics for its depth of access and reliance on “representative” interviewees to achieve an artistic result. Unlike Capote, Seierstad doesn’t make stuff up, and her work reflects the European tradition of reportage, which places the individual subject’s direct testimony at the centre of the story.
On this occasion, however, the benefits of testimony are challenged by the author’s decision to afford her Pashtun Islamist contact, “Bashir”, anonymity. From what we are told in the author’s postscript, Seierstad made little progress on verifying the militiaman’s self-aggrandising claims to greatness as a real-life Afghan “terminator” of infidels. This pivotal aspect of the book rests on shaky foundations.
That said, as the story develops, so too does our familiarity with the cast of characters, their varied lives and destinies gradually folding in upon each other. It is a cast that includes Afghan men supportive of their wives’ desperate desire to study and work.
We are there when Jamila’s conservative female siblings conspire to cover her clandestine attendance at school, despite death threats from her brother. And, we witness in awe as Jamila, invited to meet the Taliban’s foreign minister, corrects his misinterpretation of the Koran.
“The prophet said it was everyone’s duty to learn,” she tells him. “The prophet makes no distinction between boys and girls here. By what right do you?”
Dr Christopher Kremmer is senior lecturer in Literary Journalism at the University of NSW. He is the author of The Carpet Wars: A Journey across the Islamic Heartlands (HarperCollins).
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