The vivid, often startling memoir of a young woman shaped by two dramatically disparate worlds. Saira Shah is the English-born daughter of an Afgha...
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Dec 04, 2008
Antof9
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It's hard to know what to say about this book. I said a lot of it in the journal entry for the audio version. I am so glad I was introduced to this book. It's such a great "Current Events" class without all the traditional dry "clip an article from the paper and come to class prepared to talk about it". I don't know if it makes sense or not, but one of the things about this book that resonates with me is her desire to call a country her own. My dad was in the (American)
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Jan 26, 2011
Bruce
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The Storyteller’s Daughter is a memoir of a British born Afghan woman. The author’s narrative style is enjoyable and easy to read. Ms. Shah, a British journalist, intersperses Afghan and family history, philosophy and legends with her personal experiences. When a little girl her father told her stories about Afghanistan and later said, “I’ve given you stories to replace a community. They are your community.”
Very early in the book she relates some of her experiences while filming “Beneath th More...
Very early in the book she relates some of her experiences while filming “Beneath th More...
Oct 31, 2010
Deborah
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Saira Shah has an absorbing story to tell, herself, as we follow her in pursuit of an Afghanistan she was raised to believe in as a nearly mystical place, at her father's knee.
A brilliant author with a fascinating life, Ms Shah kept me on the edge of my seat and the hours flew by as I listened to her descriptions of the Afghaney (sp?) people, the Taliban, and her travels through the mountain terrains to seek her ancestory home and people. What she found in the end was far more than More...
A brilliant author with a fascinating life, Ms Shah kept me on the edge of my seat and the hours flew by as I listened to her descriptions of the Afghaney (sp?) people, the Taliban, and her travels through the mountain terrains to seek her ancestory home and people. What she found in the end was far more than More...
Jun 10, 2009
Michelle
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This book by Saira Shah was very interesting. I cannot imagine putting on a shalwar kameez, pretending to be a young man, and trekking around Afgahnistan with the Mujahideen during Afghanistan's war with the Soviet Union. What an amazing and unforgettable experience that must have been. For me, I felt Shah's book shed some light upon how difficult it is to live in two different worlds. On the one hand she grew up in the west, and on the other hand she was raised with a fierce love of her family'
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Jan 21, 2012
Dot
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Saira Shah begins her book by talking about her family and growing up in England but always being aware that Afghanistan is her homeland. She hears stories about the fabulous estate that was once owned by her family but lost to them when her grandfather was unable to return home to claim it during WW2.
Saira Shah is a journalist who has made a career of visiting war zones and she therefore took the opportunity to cover the hostilities in Afghanistan so that she could experience her hom More...
Saira Shah is a journalist who has made a career of visiting war zones and she therefore took the opportunity to cover the hostilities in Afghanistan so that she could experience her hom More...
Jul 15, 2010
Rehana
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Liked the historical aspect of the book but author's personal journey lacked real depth for my interest. It seemed like a soul searching channel 4 news report - and how soul searching does that ever get?!
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Mar 09, 2009
Randymon
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The best travel writing interleaves the personal with the external, and Shah's tale of personal reconciliation in a perhaps unreconcilable land is poignant and moving. Her prose falls short of the mark, perhaps given her background in journalism rather than something more evocative (I much prefer Colin Thubron for his immense vocabulary and clever turns of phrase) but Shah's insights into Afghanistan are precious. It's an easy to recommend introduction to the complexity and convolution of a la
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Feb 13, 2009
Andrew
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An autobiography of Shah's work in Afghanistan during the Soviet war, the period of the Taliban and post-Taliban, woven together with her own thoughts on seeking the mystical homeland she had heard about in stories from her father and relatives while growing up. An interesting and well-written narrative with interesting insights into life in Afghanistan as well as the difficulty of coming to grips with the difference between one's image of a place and it's reality. Shah was born and raised in En
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Sep 19, 2011
Sandra
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This was an interesting book, but abit tedious at times. I'm glad its done. I guess I was expecting something quite different.
From the book: The vivid, often startling memoir of a young woman shaped by two dramatically disparate worlds. Saira Shan is the English-born daughter of an Afghan aristocrat, inspired by his dazzling stories to rediscover the now lost life their forebearers presided over for nine hundred years within sight of the snow-capped mountains and lush gardens of Kabul. More...
From the book: The vivid, often startling memoir of a young woman shaped by two dramatically disparate worlds. Saira Shan is the English-born daughter of an Afghan aristocrat, inspired by his dazzling stories to rediscover the now lost life their forebearers presided over for nine hundred years within sight of the snow-capped mountains and lush gardens of Kabul. More...
Sep 08, 2011
Denise
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This book was difficult for me to get through but I am glad I finally returned to it and finished it. The book is a very introspective, non-fiction account of a British reporter who spends years on and off in Afghanistan covering the Russian occupation and subsequent civil war. I think the reason I found it hard to read was because it is quite self indulgent and because I was stressed as I anticipated things getting worse as the story progresses. The time of the Taliban rule is horrendous to
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Jan 12, 2012
Toni
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English born Saira Shah's was weaned on her father's stories of a lush and majestic land, instilling in her the desire to search for her Afghani roots. As an adult her longing to find her ancestral land takes her into the violence and upheaval of an Afghanistan torn apart by years of invaders. It's a difficult, though moving, story of the time she spent as a journalist in a land she beautifully describes.
I now have a much better grasp of Afghanistan's convoluted history and the mind More...
I now have a much better grasp of Afghanistan's convoluted history and the mind More...
Nov 17, 2008
Kiersten
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This book was very eye-opening. I loved the insights about the Afghani myths and culture. However, by the end of the book, I was really tired about listening to her wax philosophical and whiny about how she couldn't reconcile her eastern heritage with her western upbringing, and about how she couldn't find herself, when there were actual atrocities and horrors unfolding all around her.
At one point, after she had knowingly dishonored her family and her beloved uncle by moving in w More...
At one point, after she had knowingly dishonored her family and her beloved uncle by moving in w More...
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Oct 06, 2009
Marcie
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I found this book completely absorbing. The author has written a story that is informative, illuminating, passionate and wrenching as she takes us along on her quest to know her home land... its mystique, its landscape and its people, her people.
I have read half a dozen or so books on Afghanistan recently, my own quest of sorts to understand better some thing of the history, culture, and traditions of a people I have not had the benefit of knowing except through the lens of war as More...
I have read half a dozen or so books on Afghanistan recently, my own quest of sorts to understand better some thing of the history, culture, and traditions of a people I have not had the benefit of knowing except through the lens of war as More...
Jun 07, 2010
Julia
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I should have loved this memoir of a journalist going back to the home she had never been to: Afghanistan, but it's not the book for me today, or perhaps it's the storyteller...
“Two people live inside me. Like a couple who rarely speak, they are not compatible. My Western side is a sensitive, liberal, middle class pacifist. My Afghan side I can only describe as a rapacious robber baron. It revels in bloodshed, glories in risk and will not afraid.”
“Two people live inside me. Like a couple who rarely speak, they are not compatible. My Western side is a sensitive, liberal, middle class pacifist. My Afghan side I can only describe as a rapacious robber baron. It revels in bloodshed, glories in risk and will not afraid.”
Jun 06, 2010
Kelleyn
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This book is very informative. The writer is a journalist who returns to her home country only to find that the country her relatives speak of is no longer there. This is far from Kite Runner, so if you are reading this book because you like that book they are very different. If Afghanistan was truely such a wonderful country at one time, it is truely devastating to see what it has become. Nothing to indear you in this book.
Feb 25, 2011
Molly
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This book did enrich my understanding of the Afghan culture, mostly post Soviet invasion. But I did struggle a bit with her preoccupation of stalking the Afghan myth that she grew up which was mostly dispelled by the end of the book, and her seeming lack of sensitivity to the overwhelming suffering she must have encountered. Maybe she felt it but did not express it - who knows. But I do greatly admire her incredible courage - this is one very brave woman.
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Nov 07, 2010
Katie
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This is a great book. Shah's prose has aa Persian sensibility, blending myth and reality, and seeming very lyrical as you read. From a "current affairs" standpoint, there's hind-sight look at the birth of the Taliban an the trouble brewing in Afghanistan in the 80's. I wanted to read more slowly, to try and really learn what was being shared, but also couldn't wait to see where I was going. It has inspired me to educate myself more on the region.
Jan 14, 2012
Bridget
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Very beautiful writing and an interesting little mini-memoir. I admit I was a little caught off guard by this book because I thought I was reading THIS The Storyteller's Daughter so it took me a few chapters to realize that I wasn't.
Aug 10, 2011
Lisa
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I guess I give this book three stars. The more I read it, the angrier I got that America is fighting in Afghanistan. The Story Teller's Daughter, written by Saira Shah, is a memoir by an Afghani woman who grew up in London and went back to Afghanistan as a western journalist for two long periods of time. If the book evoked this much emotion in me, it must be good.
Jan 13, 2010
Jupie
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A friend lent me this book. It's a true story of a news reporter whose family was from Afganistan. She grew up in England and went back to Afganistan to confirm her father's stories of the people that lived there. She was disappointed but also found people from the stories. An eye opening book about the people of Afganistan.
Mar 08, 2011
Marjorie
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While the stories of her childhood and of her early travels in Afghanistan are swash-buckling adventures, I found the book itself to be disjointed and difficult to follow. Shah avoids a pat ending and describes the horrifying events she has witnessed with a lack of affect that made me wonder how well she is coping with the trauma. My favorite quote: "If you have no sense of humour, then you have an incompleteness in your soul." Rumi
Dec 30, 2008
Jan
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Fascinating insight into the country of Afghanistan. Unsettling in many ways as the author sets out to find the true Afghanistan only to discover thst the distance between the myths she has been taught and the reality on the ground is too hard to reconcile.
Nov 16, 2007
Peggy
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This is a remarkable book, Saira Shah takes us on a journey from an English childhood, laced with Afghan myths handed down from her father, to the terrors and complexities of present-day Afghanistan.. at eh end of it you are left with the truest sense of this magical country together with the recognition that exceptional English writer is also unmistakably Afghani..
The book is alive with detail, emotion, myth, fable, bleeding reality and the author's struggle with her different selves; mil More...
The book is alive with detail, emotion, myth, fable, bleeding reality and the author's struggle with her different selves; mil More...
Feb 05, 2011
Maria (Ri)
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So this book made it clear to me that I knew little of Afghanistan with any real understanding. I had read The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, but I still didn't have a clear picture of all the various ethnic groups and struggles that have taken place during the past 30+ years. This book was beautiful and horrid and confusing all at the same time. It was hard for me to keep track of all the places and people, but that just added to my understanding of the chaos that has ensued there
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Jan 23, 2012
Mary
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I don't think I would recommend this book. The writer was so scattered all over the place. I had a hard time keeping track to who and what was happening.
Jul 27, 2011
Holly
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An Afgan woman raised in England's account of disguising herself and infilterating Taliban Afganistan while a reporter. Good history... Didn't love Cameron.
Nov 21, 2010
Denise
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Fascinating. I didn't always agree with the author's feelings or take on things, but I felt she was open and honest and brave. Enlightening and eye-opening.
Dec 05, 2009
Dawn
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I listened to this on tape, and listened twice. I always wonder how much is really true, it's hard to imagine that some of the things she related could be.
Feb 11, 2009
Mariestruthers
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An excellent book by the sister of Tahir Shah. The Shah siblings are of Scottish/Afghani ancestory and are descendants of master storytellers.
Sep 01, 2008
FrankO
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Both magic and tragedy. A very good book about Afganistan and its people, including the refugees in Pakistan. The myths are so intriguing. At the end, I'm left with a sense of futility about the current Afgani situation. The last 3rd of the book is brutal.
Saira Shah introduces many chapters with quotes from Rumi, the mystic poet who was driven from his Afgani homeland and later settles in Turkey. Here is Jalaluddin Rumi (quoted at the start of the epilogue):
I am the slave More...
Saira Shah introduces many chapters with quotes from Rumi, the mystic poet who was driven from his Afgani homeland and later settles in Turkey. Here is Jalaluddin Rumi (quoted at the start of the epilogue):
I am the slave More...
