- Paperback: 464 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin's Press; Reprint edition (Jun 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312301731
- ISBN-13: 978-0312301736
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.2 x 3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,462,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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11 reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
A book whose time has definitely arrived.
27 Nov 2001
Format:Hardcover
'Kabul'is a great read on several levels. I read this book when it came out in 1986 and then again recently. In the eighties, at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, I found it to be a great story with compelling characters and a window on an exotic country that I knew absolutely nothing about. Now, in 2001, I have reread it and absorbed far more about the tumultuous and confusing political situation that brought Afghanistan into the situation in which we see it today.
'Kabul' features the half-American family of a minister to former King Zahir Shah. The eldest son is a journalist later turned rebel leader. The daughter of the family is American educated. We see her life in the the U.S., tormented by political and familial loyalties and contrasted against the lives of her women friends back home. The youngest son is educated in Moscow and we see him evolve from a spoiled rich kid into a passionate and patriotic man. Issues of tribal loyalties and boundary disputes that I am reading about in the news every day are much more understandable to me after reading this book. I literally made a check list of the many conflicts Hirsh dramatizes so effectively in fiction that are now playing out on the world stage.
It is fortunate that this book has been reissued in paperback right now. Its time has definitely come!
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Author's Comment
29 Nov 2001
Format:Hardcover
'Kabul' opens at the end of what the New York Times has called the Golden Age of Afghanistan, when Kabul was a sophisticated international capital with a co-ed university drawing faculty from around the world. It follows one prominent half-American family caught up in events from the end of the monarchy until the Soviet invasion, which set the stage for 22 years of war and international abandonment, and ultimately the rise of the Taliban. This portrait of Afghanistan's not-too-distant past explores the tensions that came to polarize the country.
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Forget "Kite Runner." This is the book to read . . .
5 Jun 2006
Format:Paperback
This terrific novel about Afghanistan in the 1970s makes "The Kite Runner" seem plodding and shallow. It is a family saga with its own "spoiled prince" character, full of political intrigue in the years leading up to the Soviet invasion, and its closing chapters involve not one but two daring rescue missions. The scope of this 440+ page novel is as far ranging and ambitious as Boris Pasternak's "Dr. Zhivago."
The fortunes and fate of the well-to-do Anwari family are linked to the rise and fall of governments in Kabul, and the country itself is portrayed in the grip of revolutionary conflict and in an international context involving its neighbors, the US, and the USSR. Meanwhile, there are weddings, love affairs, sibling rivalries, conflicts between parents and children, babies born, illness and death, mixed loyalties, hopes, fears, disappointments, the entire gamut of the human drama.
This intricately plotted novel weaves together a host of story threads and shifting points of view among characters that deepen their emotional and psychological reality. Dialogues between them are elegant and sharp witted as they jockey for advantage with each other while reaching at the same time for any feelings that would lessen their vulnerability. Don't let the burqas on the cover mislead you. The women in this novel are strong and independent, and their struggle to remain so represents the birth pangs of an ancient civilization on the verge of the modern age.
Hirsch has written one heck of a novel, and it deserves an audience that yearns to know more about the country and the culture that for decades has continued to withstand the destructive forces of civil strife and international conflict.
The fortunes and fate of the well-to-do Anwari family are linked to the rise and fall of governments in Kabul, and the country itself is portrayed in the grip of revolutionary conflict and in an international context involving its neighbors, the US, and the USSR. Meanwhile, there are weddings, love affairs, sibling rivalries, conflicts between parents and children, babies born, illness and death, mixed loyalties, hopes, fears, disappointments, the entire gamut of the human drama.
This intricately plotted novel weaves together a host of story threads and shifting points of view among characters that deepen their emotional and psychological reality. Dialogues between them are elegant and sharp witted as they jockey for advantage with each other while reaching at the same time for any feelings that would lessen their vulnerability. Don't let the burqas on the cover mislead you. The women in this novel are strong and independent, and their struggle to remain so represents the birth pangs of an ancient civilization on the verge of the modern age.
Hirsch has written one heck of a novel, and it deserves an audience that yearns to know more about the country and the culture that for decades has continued to withstand the destructive forces of civil strife and international conflict.
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