The Bookseller of Kabul cover art

The Bookseller of Kabul

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

The Bookseller of Kabul

By: Asne Seierstad
Narrated by: Emilia Fox
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £11.99

Buy Now for £11.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

A Richard and Judy Book Club Selection.

For more than 20 years Sultan Khan defied the authorities to supply books to the people of Kabul. He was arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned, and watched illiterate soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. In spring 2002, award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad spent four months living with the bookseller and his family. As she steps back from the page and lets the Khans tell their stories, we learn of proposals and marriages, hope and fear, crime and punishment. The result is a unique portrait of a family and a country.

2004, Nibbies, Short-listed

©2002 Asne Seierstad (P)2005 Time Warner AudioBooks Cultural & Regional Middle East Military

Listeners also enjoyed...

 A Thousand Splendid Suns cover art
One of Us cover art
Mosaic cover art
The Kite Runner cover art
Something Fierce cover art
A Cup of Friendship cover art
The Corpse Washer cover art
Claiming My Place: Coming of Age in the Shadow of the Holocaust cover art
When the Moon Is Low cover art
Mao's Last Dancer cover art
The Nazi Officer's Wife cover art
Thursday's Child cover art
A Tale of Love and Darkness cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Somewhat tragic story of enlightenment marred by paternalism, parochialism and conservatism.

This is the story of a well known family of booksellers and how they survive and at times thrive in challenging periods of Kabul’s political history – before, during and after the Taliban. Semi-ethnographic insights are generously offered from an outsider-insider story of a bookseller who treasured and protected Afghanistan’s written history, and his family. Despite hardship, poverty, threats, violence and abuse the family protect and treasure important books from the repressive intolerance of the Taliban regime. The bookseller positions himself as neutral; selling whatever people are prepared to buy, often stocking diametrically political perspectives.

The book emerges from a Norwegian journalist who was hospitably accommodated by the bookseller’s family; learning about their past, exploring the perspectives and stories of each of the family members. She promises to tell the story of the family and its important role in protecting the cultural history of Afghanistan. She records the stories of the bookseller and his family, and in so doing brings to light his harsh and abusive side.

The Bookseller of Kabul offers interesting insights into Afghanistan in different periods; into the clash of cultures; the value of books; and intra-family power dynamics and abuse.

The successful publication and sales of this book created its own story: the ethics of receiving and benefiting from the hospitality of a family while producing a work which is deeply critical of the (superficially disguised) host himself and his relationships with family and others.

Insightful but troubling...

Insightful, challenging but troubling book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The author, a Norwegian woman, gets the opportunity of staying with an Afghan family, the Bookseller of Kabul to be precise, and Seierstad shares with us what she sees, learns and experiences about the life of the bookseller, a society, a country and a family structure so very different from ours.

A must read about family life in Afghanistan

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I loved this book, the story, the way it was written, the narrator was just perfect. It’s a long time since I had such a good book.

Excellent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not totally true to the book, pieces are missing throughout & a whole chapter is missing.

Heavy reading

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A supposedly non-fiction book written by a Scandinavian who did not speak the local languages and only stayed with the bookseller's family for 3 months and yet we are to believe that she was able to get into the heads of multiple people from a completely different culture. And 100% bleakness? No place for happiness/brightness in this society? There are points of interest in it, however, and the narrator does an excellent job with the matieral available.

Bleak 'non fiction' but can it really be accurate?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Any additional comments?

I was uncertain whether I really wanted to hear this, but it was on my book club's list so I gave it a go. I couldn't put it down. I felt that I better understood the situation in the country and what had lead to it's problems. Somewhat brutal at times, certainly very sad in places, but always fascinating.

Brilliant insight to this Country and it's people

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Really enjoyable but I was confused by so many characters without space to introduce them sufficiently.

Great, but ends rather abruptly

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I enjoyed this book about the life and family dynamics in Afganistan. the ending was abrupt tho

very informative

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book has ethical issues related to the underlying journalism — readers should bear that in mind

Ethical issues

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It was repetitive and poorly written. The reader was mis-cast and it just sounded patronising.

Worst Book I’ve read in some time

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews