Set in Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul, this extraordinary novel
"puts a human face on the suffering inflicted by the Taliban" (San
Francisco Chronicle), taking readers into the seemingly divergent lives
of two couples*--*and depicting with compassion and exquisite
details the mentality of Islamic fundamentalists and the complexities of
the Muslim world.
Mohsen comes from a family of wealthy shopkeepers whom the Taliban has
destroyed; Zunaira, his wife, exceedingly beautiful, was once a
brilliant teacher and is now no longer allowed to leave her home without
an escort or covering her face. Intersecting their world is Atiq, a
prison keeper, a man who has sincerely adopted the Taliban ideology and
struggles to keep his faith, and his wife, Musarrat, who once rescued
Atiq and is now dying of sickness and despair.
Desperate, exhausted Mohsen wanders through Kabul when he is surrounded
by a crowd about to stone an adulterous woman. Numbed by the hysterical
atmosphere and drawn into their rage, he too throws stones at the face
of the condemned woman buried up to her waist. With this gesture the
lives of all four protagonists move toward their destinies.
*
*Yasmina Khadra brings readers into the hot, dusty streets of Kabul and
offers them an unflinching but compassionate insight into a society that
violence and hypocrisy have brought to the edge of despair.
