The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra: Cruel reality of everyday life in Afghanistan

Posted on September 13, 2014

How would everyday life look like when an entire country has lost its freedom to fundamentalists? If this is a question one has, then ’The swallows of Kabul’ offers the answer. The answer as expected is not at all pretty. In fact it is downright depressing. The life of people in this dusty, broken down country has slowly and surely become inhuman. The book starts with the public stoning of a woman accused of being a prostitute. It ends with another public stoning. In between these two incidences are the snippets of ordinary life of jailor Atiq Shaukat, his ailing wife Mussarat, young but helpless Mohsen and his beautiful and feisty wife Zunaira. I found reading this book akin to a journey in a train that passes through a barren, burnt, dark country side where a sense of utter hopeless prevails. The surrounding mountains seemed to stop any joy from entering this country side.
I know that this is a reality of life for ordinary people in Afghanistan today but I still longed for some delicate moments and occasional green shoots of hope. None are present in the book.
So is this book worth reading? Yes, it is. Am I recommending it? I’m not, simply because I found it depressing. This book is translated from French to English. The cover of the book mentions the Daily Telegraph review as ‘Vivid…Inspiring…it reads with biblical force’ and I partly agree. It is vivid- uncomfortably so; but not inspiring.