Hay Festival Book Club – The Bookseller of Kabul

In spring 2002, following the fall of the Taliban, Åsne Seierstad spent four months living with a bookseller and his family in Kabul.

For more than twenty years Sultan Khan defied the authorities - be they communist or Taliban - to supply books to the people of Kabul. He was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned by the communists and watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. He even resorted to hiding most of his stock in attics all over Kabul.

But while Khan is passionate in his love of books and hatred of censorship, he is also a committed Muslim with strict views on family life. As an outsider, Seierstad is able to move between the private world of the women – including Khan's two wives – and the more public lives of the men. And so we learn of proposals and marriages, suppression and abuse of power, crime and punishment. The result is a gripping and moving portrait of a family, and a clear-eyed assessment of a country struggling to free itself from history.

21 years since The Bookseller of Kabul was first published, we revisit the modern classic and the complex themes it unearths around resistance and the power of storytelling.

Further reading

‘It is worse now’: The Bookseller of Kabul author Åsne Seierstad on returning to Afghanistan 20 years on, The Guardian

About the author

Åsne Seierstad is a journalist and writer. She was stationed in Russia from 1993-1996, and in China in 1997. From 1998 until 2000 she worked for Dagsrevyen on NRK and covered such events as the war in Kosovo. Later she covered conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, during the American invasion in 2003, for both Norwegian and Swedish TV. Her books include Their Backs to the World: Portraits of Serbia, The Bookseller of Kabul, One of Us: The Story of a Massacre in Norway and her latest, The Afghans: Three Lives Through War, Love and Revolt.

About Hay Festival Book Club

Timeless titles to offer you a break from the day to day. Can't decide what to read next? Follow your curiosity and join Hay Festival on a journey to imagine the world anew through great literature. Unconstrained by genre or form these are our monthly picks of great books worth reading (or re-reading) right now.

Throughout the month, we'll share interesting links and articles relating to our selection on social media using #HFBookClub and invite you all to get involved with your questions and comments. Each selection will also be marked with a free online event.

If you'd like to recommend a book for consideration, get in touch via bookclub@hayfestival.org.

Happy reading!

Supported by Unwin Charitable Trust

Compre el libro para esta actividad

The Bookseller of Kabul