Harrowing, thought-provoking, unexpected. Kabul, as conjured up by Yasmina Khadra* is, in the words of JM Coetzee 'hell on earth, a place of hunger, tedium and stifling fear.' A slim volume, this book transports you in few, but choice, words to the Afghanistan capital under the regime of the Taliban, where women are stoned to death, hide their faces and bodies under burqhas, and in which no one is allowed to sing, smile or dance. Freedom, responsibility, fate, death and love are a few of the book's themes, explored through the relationships of two couples who lives are crumbling. Day-to-day life in this hopeless place has shrunk their expectations, dimmed an appetite for life. So the choice of a Kabul prison as one of the novel's settings is meaningful. Who are the real prisoners? Those locked up by jailers for crimes real and false, most likely sentenced to death? Or those, nominally free, who are driven to violence, words and acts that would have been anathema to their younger, freer selves? People trapped in a living hell?
*Yasmina Khadra is a pseudonym of Mohammed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer now living in France. The name is that of his wife's.
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