Page Turners – November 2024 review

In November the Page Turners read ‘The Bookseller of Kabul‘ by Asne Seierstad. This book was first published in 2002 after the Norwegian journalist had spent several months living with an Afghan bookseller’s family shortly after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. It concentrates on the lives of ordinary Afghans at a time when the country seemed to be moving forward. It concentrates particularly on the lives of the women and tells of a way of life where women and children are very much dominated by men and customs such as polygamy and arranged marriages are common. The book offers some hope as at the time women were beginning to be able to cast off the burka and go to school or take jobs and we read of how families who were steeped in tradition coped with these new opportunities. However, we read it in the knowledge that the Taliban is now back in power and women are living with even greater restrictions than those described in the book.

We enjoyed the way in which the book was written and liked the fact that despite being non-fiction, the characters were well rounded and the stories were engaging. The author’s unique access to the women in the family gave us a real insight into their lives. However, the subject matter, was of course deeply troubling to us.

We affirmed our belief that women should play an equal role in society. We talked widely around cultural differences and how different societies have developed in different ways or at different rates. We understand that ways of life and behaviours are learned from our forebears and take time to change, but we were horrified by the fact that in Afghan society things now seem to be getting more extreme rather than moving towards what we would consider to be a better way. We wondered whether we have the right to assume that our way of doing things is best and we acknowledged that, whilst we consider our society much more enlightened, there remain aspects of it which are by no means perfect and people who are not treated as they should be. It was a sobering afternoon as we could offer no solutions to the situation in which so many women are living.

We struggled to say that we enjoyed the book but we all felt glad that we had read it.

Do get in touch if you would like to read it too and we can swap a copy of this page turner for one of your own.

Deborah Wallis, Convenor