5 Mar 2009 08:47
Bookseller of Kabul
Sunday's San Jose Mercury News had an article, apparently from he Los
Angeles Times, about Shah Muhammad Rais, "The Bookseller of
Kabul," part of which I copy below. The full article is at
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=126B32ADD90D3540&p_docnum=1
.
Section: Front
Edition: Valley Final
Page: 18A
Laura King
Los Angeles Time
There's one bookstore where you'll never, ever find a copy of "The Bookseller of Kabul." That would be the Bookseller's.
The epic literary feud that erupted with the book's publication more than five years ago still endures -- at least from the perspective of Shah Muhammad Rais, who hated his depiction as Sultan Khan, a liberal intellectual in public but a tyrant in his own home.
The author is Asne Seierstad, a Norwegian journalist who had come to Afghanistan in late 2001 to cover the fall of the Taliban government. On arriving in the capital, she encountered Rais, the erudite, English-speaking proprietor of the battered city's best bookshop, which then had a branch in a half-ruined hotel where many journalists stayed.
[etc.]
Ed Jajko
LITERARY BITTERNESS LINGERS FOR AFGHAN
'BOOKSELLER' AUTHOR, SUBJECT STILL AT ODDS March 1, 2009Section: Front
Edition: Valley Final
Page: 18A
Laura King
Los Angeles Time
There's one bookstore where you'll never, ever find a copy of "The Bookseller of Kabul." That would be the Bookseller's.
The epic literary feud that erupted with the book's publication more than five years ago still endures -- at least from the perspective of Shah Muhammad Rais, who hated his depiction as Sultan Khan, a liberal intellectual in public but a tyrant in his own home.
The author is Asne Seierstad, a Norwegian journalist who had come to Afghanistan in late 2001 to cover the fall of the Taliban government. On arriving in the capital, she encountered Rais, the erudite, English-speaking proprietor of the battered city's best bookshop, which then had a branch in a half-ruined hotel where many journalists stayed.
[etc.]
Ed Jajko
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