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Les Hirondelles de Kaboul

Yasmina Khadra

3.66 · Rating details · 7,696 ratings · 866 reviews

Dans les ruines brûlantes de la cité millénaire de Kaboul, la mort rôde, un turban noir autour du crâne. Ici, une lapidation de femme, là un stade rempli pour des exécutions publiques. Les Taliban veillent. La joie et le rire sont devenus suspects. Atiq, le courageux moudjahid reconverti en geôlier, traîne sa peine. Le goût de vivre a également abandonné Mohsen, qui rêvait ...more

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Mass Market Paperback, 148 pages

Published April 19th 2010 by Pocket (first published August 26th 2002)

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Sep 09, 2015 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: algeria, french, literature, afghanistan, historical, culture, war, fiction, 21th-century

Les Hirondelles de Kaboul = Swallows of Kabul, Yasmina Khadra (Mohammed Moulessehoul)

The Swallows of Kabul is a novel by Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra. It was originally written and published in French.

You meet Atiq Shaukat, a jailer. His wife, Musarrat, is very sick and dying. She is a burden to him and made him late for work.

He escorts a prostitute to be executed. You meet Mohsen Ramat. He's against the new Taliban rule. He is in the market place when he sees a prostitute being stoned to de Les Hirondelles de Kaboul = Swallows of Kabul, Yasmina Khadra (Mohammed Moulessehoul)

The Swallows of Kabul is a novel by Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra. It was originally written and published in French.

You meet Atiq Shaukat, a jailer. His wife, Musarrat, is very sick and dying. She is a burden to him and made him late for work.

He escorts a prostitute to be executed. You meet Mohsen Ramat. He's against the new Taliban rule. He is in the market place when he sees a prostitute being stoned to death at the public execution. Even thought he thinks it's wrong, he loses himself, picks up a rock and throws is it at her, cracking her head open. ...

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: دهم سپتامبر سال 2010میلادی

عنوان: پرستوهای کابل؛ یاسمینا خضرا (محمد مولی السهول)؛ مترجم مهدی غبرایی؛ تهران، آمیتیس، 1388، در 166ص، شابک 9648787271؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان الجزایر - سده 21م

داستان دو خانواده «افغانی» است؛ مردی که آموزگار است، و همسرش، پیش از حکومت «طالبان» بر «کابل»، قاضی بوده، و داستان مرد دیگری که زندان‌بان است، و با همسرش، در «کابل» زندگی می‌کند؛ «مولی‌السهول»، چون عضو ارتش «الجزایر» بوده، سال‌ها با نام مستعار یک زن (یاسمینا خضرا)، نوشته‌ های خود را، منتشر می‌کرده اند؛ ایشان در سال 2001میلادی، به تبعیدی خودخواسته، به «فرانسه» میروند؛ ایشان در پاسخ به این پرسش، که چگونه یک نویسنده «الجزایری» می‌تواند، از «کابل» و «افغانستان» رمان بنویسد، گفته اند «خضرا، شاید هیچ‌گاه، «افغانستان» را از نزدیک، ندیده باشد؛ اما به هرحال، در یک کشور اسلامی، زندگی کرده، و شاید با افغان‌هایی، آشنا بوده است؛ چیزی که مشخص است، این نکته است که وی، برای این رمان، بی‌ تردید پژوهشهای بسیاری انجام داده اند، چرا که کتاب ایشان، بسیار به فضای «افغانستان» نزدیک‌تر است؛ به گفته ی جناب «غبرایی»، این نویسنده، در بازتاب تصویر «افغانستان»، از «خالد حسینی» نیز پیشی گرفته است

وی در اینباره، تاکید کرده: («خالد حسینی» در کتاب «بادبادک‌ باز»، ماجرای یک خانواده ی مرفه، در «کابل» را تعریف می‌کند؛ همچنین بیشتر رمان، در «آمریکا» می‌گذرد؛ کتاب دوم او «هزاران خورشید درخشان» هم، تمامش در «افغانستان» نمی‌گذرد، و گذری هم، به «پاکستان» دارد؛ اما «پرستوهای کابل»، تنها در «کابل» رخ می‌دهد، و بسیار به فرهنگ این کشور، نزدیکتر است)؛

مترجم، سبک نگارش «پرستوهای کابل»‌ را، واقع‌ گرایانه دانسته اند، و درباره ی شیوه ی نگارش «خضرا»، توضیح داده اند: (این نویسنده دست‌کم در این کتاب، در کنار نثری تاثیرگذار و شاعرانه، از واقع‌ گرایی، دور نشده است؛ همچنین اشارات تاریخی در کتاب، فراوان است، و تا جاییکه من می‌دانم و مطالعه کرده‌ ام، ارجاعات تاریخی این اثر، کاملا واقعی هستند)؛ جناب «غبرایی»، درباره ی چگونگی ترجمه ی کتاب نیز، توضیح داده اند (چون پیشتر، آثار «خالد حسینی» را، ترجمه کرده بودم، برای برگرداندن اصطلاحات «افغانی»، مشکلی نداشتم؛ غذاها و آیین‌ها را، می‌شناختم؛ اما در چند مورد، ناچار شدم مطالعه کنم، تا ترجمه، کم‌ نقص باشد؛ در کل، از آنجا که کتاب، نثری روان دارد، ترجمه ی آن برایم مشکل نبود)؛ و فرموده اند کتاب را از متن انگلیسی کتاب به فارسی برگردانده‌ اند؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 13/11/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی ...more

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Jul 19, 2017 Jim Fonseca rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: french-authors

This is a grim story of the horrendous conditions in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 after the Taliban took over control from the Soviets.

While there is a story and a plot, the book is really about the desolate conditions in the war-scarred capital of Kabul: a dying city in a dying landscape of desert heat and dryness hemmed in by mountains. Half of the buildings are destroyed, including mosques. Some structures are simply fronts of buildings; business is conducted in pieces of buildings.

description

The brut ...more

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May 10, 2012 Aly (Fantasy4eva) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: borrowed-from-library, fast-paced-and-engrossing, i-ache-for-you, pleasantly-surprised, dark-and-gritty, conflicted-thoughts

I still feel very conflicted about this book. Originally, I had planned on giving it four stars. But after having thought about it some more, I'll be settling for three instead. (reasons below)

Whilst many mentioned that their biggest gripe was getting into the book, for me that was hardly an issue. I was pretty much full on engrossed from the first page. And with a opening page starting with a woman being stoned to death, how the hell can I not be? Not only did it really make me recoil from sho
I still feel very conflicted about this book. Originally, I had planned on giving it four stars. But after having thought about it some more, I'll be settling for three instead. (reasons below)

Whilst many mentioned that their biggest gripe was getting into the book, for me that was hardly an issue. I was pretty much full on engrossed from the first page. And with a opening page starting with a woman being stoned to death, how the hell can I not be? Not only did it really make me recoil from shock and disgust, but despite the fact that I was sat among others in the library, my urge was so strong to shout that I had to put the book down for a minute. And there were so many of these moments, because the author does not hold back AT ALL. There is shocking moment after moment and as these strong, unfair rules are imposed of the citizens of Kabul, I felt isolated and suffocated right alongside them.

This, in my opinion, is the strongest point of this book. It sucks in you in from the very first page and completely holds you captive, making you squirm and flinch at the exact intended moments whilst always being very, very aware that - no matter how hopeful things may seem- that everything can go downhill at any given moment. And that is apparent - followed by the fact that I never expected a happy ending, ever. I never witnessed a sweet moment without waiting for something horrifying to follow it.

But this book also unsettled me in another way. I felt manipulated, almost, at times. I got into this book and realised very quickly that the only way to read through it was to accept all that I was being told. And although I was a little on the fence about some things, I pretty much left them behind as I read on, locking them inside until now to really reevaluate my thoughts on this book. What I would have really appreciated before delving into this book is: how does the author know what he does about Kabul and its people there? Has he done some in depth research, interviewed men and women who reside there, visit or live there for a time? Not knowing these things, ultimately, left me a little annoyed when the female characters felt so black and white whilst the men seemed to have somewhat more a layer of complexities to them.

Because either you have the strong minded, educated, independent Zunaira, or the ever obedient, extremely devoted, self sacrificing wife that is Musarrat. Whilst both of their husbands (who also seemed a little off to me, but not to the same extent) seemed to have more depth in contrast. Now I'm not saying that what they face does not happen, because I am aware that times have been extremely tough/horrifying since the Taliban took over, but I feel that it's because of this very reason that knowing the facts and accurate details is so much more important to me. Because as a Muslim, if I am being told that this, this, and this, is happening, then I need more than being expected to go with it, simply because you happen to be telling the story.

In the book, characters dwell of the past - of more happier times, with pure sadness and longing. And it's enough to make me want to see that past for myself, because although things were not perfect even then, they seemed like happy times, times filled with less fear and terror. But it leaves me conflicted because isn't there even a tinge of beauty in the most darkest of times? I have been Pakistan, and I have seen beauty within my home town that I honestly never expected to see. And although that's a unfair comparison to make because things are so, so much worse in Afghanistan right now, I refuse to believe that there is not a hint of hope or happiness in that place, that all is lost, that it is as hopeless as this book tells me it is.

Now do you see how conflicted I am? Funny, since these things tend to niggle at me only after I have finished reading the book. It is a bit tougher for me right now because all the community reviews I have read really don't go into personal thoughts when it comes to this book (no friends have read and reviewed it ) so I feel pretty alone on this one. And I definitely, even now, am trying to figure out where I stand with this book.

But I suppose since it has left me so deep in thought, it must mean something, right?.

Think I'm just gonna sleep on it :)

...more

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Mar 28, 2016 Melanie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

3.5 stars. "Furthermore, I refuse to wear a burqa. Of all the burdens tha have put on us, that is the most degrading. The Shirt of Nessus wouldn't do as much damage to my dignity as that wretched getup. It cancels my face and takes away my identity and turns me into an object. Here, at least, I'm me, Zunaira, Mohsen Ramat's wife, age 32, former magistrate, dismissed by obscurantists without a hearing and without compensation, but with enough self-respect left to brush my hair every day and pay a ...more

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Dec 13, 2016 Guy Austin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, fiction

The first two pages and I was hooked. This is a beautifully written novel that will punch you in the gut, have you wanting to throw it against a wall in disgust, make you weep for the tragic characters and fall in love with the writing.

“And yet it is also here, amid the hush of stony places and the silence of graves, in this land of dry earth and arid hearts, that our story is born, like the water lily that blooms in the stagnant swamp.”

You could almost read the first two pages and have a ful The first two pages and I was hooked. This is a beautifully written novel that will punch you in the gut, have you wanting to throw it against a wall in disgust, make you weep for the tragic characters and fall in love with the writing.

“And yet it is also here, amid the hush of stony places and the silence of graves, in this land of dry earth and arid hearts, that our story is born, like the water lily that blooms in the stagnant swamp.”

You could almost read the first two pages and have a full understanding of Fundamentalist ruled Afghanistan under the Taliban. The writer took his wife’s name as he was an Algerian soldier and wanted to escape the censorship of the military. I first heard of this book listening to The BBC World Book Club Podcast in archive: “Yasmina Khadra – The Swallows of Kabul” Jun 5, 2015

This is the story of two Afghan couples living in Kabul, no they are merely surviving. I really do not like to give away anything. It is set the late 1990’s or early 2000’s. Two vastly different couples, but they will be violently yet passionately come together.

The author stated he wrote with the idea of wanting to understand the times he lived in, and that from his point of view, life is not worth living without the love of a woman. This is very clear in the novel by my reading, yet how he does this in a culture in which women are hidden, almost invisible, is the tragedy, a Shakespearean tragedy set in modern times.

This book is hard on the emotions and I can see why so many people gave it fewer stars than I. It is gut wrenching. But at the same time it is beautiful. It also drove home to me personally on why I am so thankful to live in a country that separates Church and State. I say that as a practicing Christian.

“In the middle of nowhere, a whirlwind spins like a sorceress flinging out her skirts in a macabre dance; yet not even this hysteria serves to blow the dust off the calcified palm trees thrust against the sky like beseeching arms. Several hours ago, the night, routed by the dawn and fleeing in disorder, left behind a few of its feeble breezes, but the heat has scorched and smothered them….

…Then, without warning, at the foot of the mountains singed bare by the breath of raging battles, rises Kabul, or rather, what’s left of it: a city in an advanced stage of decomposition."
...more

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Apr 06, 2009 Trisha added it · review of another edition

If I had a list of the most distressing books I've ever read, most likely this one would be near the top of the list! Like most people who read this short and horrifying book set in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime, I was appalled as I read about the brutality and misery that had become commonplace for everyone - most especially for women. So why read a book like this, ask readers who only read for pleasure and quickly abandon any book that might leave them feeling depressed. My answer is t ...more

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Jun 22, 2014 Edita rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: yasmina-khadra

The ruin of the city walls has spread into people’s souls. The dust has stunted their orchards, blinded their eyes, sealed up their hearts. [...] Nobody believes in miraculous rains or the magical transformations of spring, and even less in the dawning of a bright new tomorrow. Men have gone mad; they have turned their backs on the day in order to face the night. Patron saints have been dismissed from their posts. Prophets are dead, and their ghosts are crucified even in the hearts of children.. ...more

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Jun 18, 2007 William rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: middle-east, political-fiction, afghanistan

In the general sense, The Swallows of Kabul is a short novel of Afghan life under the Taliban, but (as with Philip Caputos' Acts of Faith) the real message of this political novel is more personal and more penetrating. Here is book made to question the logic of fundamentalist rule. Here also is an emotionally emptying story of how the central binding power of women has been systematically destroyed by Afghanistan’s culture of war. There are scathing commentaries given to the women of Kabul — th ...more

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Jun 13, 2018 Calzean rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: author-algeria, culture-afghanistan

A starkly grim picture of life in Kabul under the Taliban. It's written by an outsider so the events are not based on any personnel experience.
There is the Taliban is all of it's violence, whipping, stoning, executions and preaching. The characters include the jailer of a prison used to house women to be executed and his dying wife. Also there is an educated couple who have lost everything and the wife refuses to leave the house as she would have to wear a burka.
There is a lot of conflict betwe ...more

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Jul 19, 2017 Rick Slane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, fiction, dystopia, dark

A short slowly developing novel of people facing a harsh Taliban regime, a perfect antidote for A Thousand Splendid Suns. ...more

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Apr 07, 2012 Ron rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The reference to swallows in the title of this remarkable novel is to the burqa-clad women of Afghanistan during the years of the Taliban. Swathed in fabric from head to toe, they have been forced from public life and, as much as possible, rendered invisible, to preserve their "purity" and the honor of their families. The French-Algerian author, Khadra, heightens the incomprehensibility of this kind of faith-based segregation of genders even further by beginning and ending his story with the pub ...more

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Dec 16, 2016 Erin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-borrowed

There's no more painful love than the love you feel when you're in a railroad station and you exchange glances with someone whose train is headed in the other direction.

This book was read based on a recommendation by one of our library volunteers. With over five thousand ratings present on Goodreads, I find myself safely in the middle. The writing is simply beautiful and the author does an excellent job of placing us in Taliban ruled Afghanistan . I felt the concept of focusing on two different ...more

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Mar 07, 2017 mandinmandin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Swallows of Kabul is a book that shows us a city turned into dirt and ruins because of all of the continuous war. Even the people themselves have become just as ugly as the city, which once was filled with music and happiness. Children excitedly following poor stray dogs to kill them, their innocence gone. People fighting to be the first to throw stones on a woman being executed in front of them. It made me want to throw the book out the window; so much injustice, so much sadness, so much cruelt ...more

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Dec 31, 2008 Kim Allen-Niesen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra is a heart piercing book about two couples living under the Taliban in Kabul. In one chapter a husband begs his wife to go for a walk with him and she finally agrees, only to have a solider abuse her and physically force her husband to attend the mosque, leaving her to stand in the heat boiling under a burka. The helplessness of both of them to protect each other in the face of such random brutality haunts me. A second couple is struggling to survive her i ...more

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Apr 10, 2011 Marialyce rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: april-2011

I was very disappointed in this book. While it started out with many intriguing answers to questions I had about the Taliban and its treatment of woman, it ended on a note that I believe trivialized the impact of their rule.

The characters of this novel try in their small way tried to revolt against the Taliban, but found themselves within a society that devalues women and makes a male feel less so because they lose their right to defend the individualistic ability of their wives, daughters, moth ...more

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Sep 12, 2016 Atiqah Ghazali rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I picked up this book after I found out that this piece is recommended by Khaled Hosseini. In addition to that, I was obsessively fanatic with the culture and pre/post-war of Afghanistan.

As this book was originally written in French language by the author, the publisher hired a translator that is fond of using a higher prose of English language. When there is one word that I'm unsure of the meaning, it put me off quite quickly. Luckily, the magnet of Afghan made me reluctant to give it up.

The t ...more

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Nov 12, 2014 Book Concierge rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: concierge, culture, literary-fiction, library, tragedy, social-commentary, religion

This short novel follows two couples in a Taliban-run Kabul. Mohsen comes from a family of wealthy shopkeepers; his wife, Zunaira, is a beautiful and brilliant teacher. The Taliban has destroyed their business and home, and Zunaira is no longer allowed to work. In contrast, we see Atiq, a jailer who has adopted the Taliban teachings, and his faithful and loving wife, Musarrat, who is dying of a debilitating illness.

Khadra writes with poetic detail about a city which the residents no longer reco This short novel follows two couples in a Taliban-run Kabul. Mohsen comes from a family of wealthy shopkeepers; his wife, Zunaira, is a beautiful and brilliant teacher. The Taliban has destroyed their business and home, and Zunaira is no longer allowed to work. In contrast, we see Atiq, a jailer who has adopted the Taliban teachings, and his faithful and loving wife, Musarrat, who is dying of a debilitating illness.

Khadra writes with poetic detail about a city which the residents no longer recognize as their own. Frightened, confused, unsure, despairing, they struggle to make sense of a culture that is at once familiar and foreign:
“…hundreds of little kids … many barely old enough to walk, and all silently braiding the stout rope they’ll use, someday soon, to lynch their country’s last hope of salvation.”
“We had some privileges that we didn’t know how to defend, and so we forfeited them to the apprentice mullahs….It would be marvelous to stand in front of a shop window, leaning against you, or to sit at a table, just the two of us, chatting away or making fantastic plans. But that’s no longer possible.”
”How could he have believed that lovers’ promenades were still possible in a city that looks like a hospice for the moribund, overrun with repellent fanatics whose eyes stare out of the dark backward and abysm of time? How could he have lost sight of the horrors that punctuate daily life in a nation so contemptible its official language is the whip?”
“You’re happy, but you don’t know it. All your life, you’ve only listened to other people – your teachers and your holy men, your leaders and your demons – and they’ve spoken to you of nothing but wrongs and bitterness and war.”

There are some startlingly brutal images contained in this small volume. This is a tragedy, and things will not end well for all these characters. But I feel that I have gained a little understanding of the situation by reading this novel, and for that I’m grateful.
...more

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Dec 12, 2008 Allison rated it liked it · review of another edition

A very interesting depiction of life after the Taliban took over in Afghanistan. What I found fascinating about this particular take on in, was how the author showed the reader how stressful the Taliban's rule was upon individuals. At one point of the book, a decision to take a walk, a simple walk, becomes monumental. Makes you think. As a whole, although interesting, it wasn't as enthralling as A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Kite Runner, or Reading Lolita in Tehran (yes, I know that's in Iran, b ...more

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Feb 11, 2009 Mariestruthers rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Ironic tale set in Kabul. Yasmina Khadra is the pen name of Mohamed Moulessehoul, an Algerian. He writes using his wife's name and offers a fascinating look at life under the burka. ...more

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Jun 10, 2018 Vanessa Couchman rated it really liked it

A harrowing fictional account of life under the Taliban in Kabul, where women must envelop themselves from head to toe and renounce their careers and proper medical care; where men must comport themselves solemnly in the street and be herded at random into mosques to hear interminable diatribes from mullahs; where laughter, singing and dancing are forbidden; and where "justice" is meted out at the whim of the authorities.

Two couples live their restricted lives under the oppressive sun of the Afg ...more

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Jun 09, 2009 Jasmine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: algerian

Algeria.

Yes yes I know karen I said this book was good. Well when I was in high school I remember being told that colleges liked people who got bs or cs freshman year and worked their way up to as their senior year. These are called rising stars. On the other hand there are things like a clockwork orange. what I mean is the movie. It is fantastic, but long and suddenly the production team appears to have gotten bored and decided to end the movie for no particular reason. Thereby making the last Algeria.

Yes yes I know karen I said this book was good. Well when I was in high school I remember being told that colleges liked people who got bs or cs freshman year and worked their way up to as their senior year. These are called rising stars. On the other hand there are things like a clockwork orange. what I mean is the movie. It is fantastic, but long and suddenly the production team appears to have gotten bored and decided to end the movie for no particular reason. Thereby making the last ten minutes terrible.

Well this book has neither of these problems. It is instead a falling star. The book starts FANTASTIC. I tend to hate books by women, but the thing about Yasmina is she is a man and this is obvious from the first word.

When I started this book I made a joke to a friend that this book would make me agree with them that we should have invaded Afghanistan (I know we shouldn't have and all the reasons we gave are crap, that's the point). Well it sort of did that. The book basically began with a stoning. Yeah that was amazing, also some guy trying to convince another guy to divorce his wife because she was sick and about to die, and of course because of that he should ditch her and go find a virgin. don't worry that isn't all that important to the story, and happens at the beginning.

The problem with this book begins when the author appears to make the decision that the book needs a ending neat, wrapped up in a bow. well I don't tend to mind if a book is left completely in the lurch. I think wrapped up endings are really that important. If you think about johnathan Trigell who talks about the endings in which you know the outcome was bad, but since the author refuses to tell you he end you can claim it is anything that you want. He means slightly in the lurch, but I personally appreciate being left completely in the lurch. I mean life is a constant lurch why should a book be any different.

When this book starts looking for endings it is attempting to find meaning and happy endings and things. some kind of a weird moral or something. I mean if the editor had ripped out the last 50 pages of this book it would have been perfect. however, when the end brings you down it can't be made up for by the beginning. ...more

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Nov 03, 2008 Kay rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Kabul, "the old sorceress," is the main character of this book, much as Egdon Heath is in a Thomas Hardy novel. The life paths of six Afghanis cross and re-cross there, their struggle to hold to the moral and beautiful ground into powder by the Russians and the Taliban and the endless war. One of them, Zunaira, is the personification of Kabul--her beauty holds as she is destroyed.

The writing is perfection--description of place and emotion precise and light and full of concrete color. I love boo Kabul, "the old sorceress," is the main character of this book, much as Egdon Heath is in a Thomas Hardy novel. The life paths of six Afghanis cross and re-cross there, their struggle to hold to the moral and beautiful ground into powder by the Russians and the Taliban and the endless war. One of them, Zunaira, is the personification of Kabul--her beauty holds as she is destroyed.

The writing is perfection--description of place and emotion precise and light and full of concrete color. I love books whose very sentences are the reason for reading.

The story is realistic, or so we have to believe. It is about men, by a man, and I wanted to weep for all of them. This is life in a fanatic-run war. This is destruction of human good and natural beauty for religious fanaticism and the cruelty that becomes a way of life when hatred is the rulers' platform.

Two couples, young (early 30s to early 40s) and in love, blow up like beautiful monuments. Mohsen Ramat and his fabulously beautiful wife, Zunaira, are devoted to each other, but Ramat has lost his place as a man in society. As he tries to regain his feet as a man, he destroys all he loves, wandering in a cemetery most of his days until he wants a simple walk through the city with his wife and they learn the impossibility of living through fanaticism.

Atiq Shaukat has a terminally ill wife and a job as jailer. He is at loose ends at home and at work; all taste has gone from life. Zunaira, brought to his jail, removes her veil and he sees a woman's face for the first time in years (I had not idea men could go for most of a lifetime without seeing a woman's face in the burqa society. He falls in love and his wife proves her love for him then, real love that wants the best for the beloved, not attachment that holds him hostage.

What strikes me most is that it is a book by a man about men and their feelings, especially moral feelings and tender feelings of love for women, in a society we think of as having little regard for women. The human attachments of these men in the midst of the Taliban nightmare is a new window on this society for me. ...more

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Mar 05, 2020 Amila rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: hated-the-characters, wish-to-forget-this-book-s-existenc

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. -5 stars
I don't remember EVER reading a more boring book with a dumber plot than this one. I wanted to DNF it the entire time I was reading it, it was horrible. Let's recap: Zunaira despises the chador that the Taliban make women wear. Mohsen, her husband, talks her into wearing it for a NICE WALK OUTSIDE WHERE THEY OBVIOUSLY ENCOUNTER SAID TALIBAN and get scolded for laughing out loud. Then Mohsen is made to attend a sermon while Zunaira waits alone in the schorching heat, in her black chador s ...more

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May 26, 2014 Czarny Pies rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: No one. There are much better books in the Khadra catalogue that one should read first.

Recommended to Czarny by: Heard a French Language interview on the CBC with the author.

Shelves: french-lit

I wondered what an Arab from Algeria, currently a French Citizen, might have to tell about the social and cultural conflict in Afghanistan that I did not already know from reading the newspaper and having read half a dozen books on the region. The answer is nothing.

Most Afghani languages are in the Persian family and the region for most of its history has had very little to do the Mediterranean where Khadra was born and still lives. The fact that Khadra comes from a Muslim society does not provi ...more

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May 20, 2019 Natasha rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I was disappointed. I knew that a book about the Taliban couldn’t be an uplifting one but it’s not the darkness and sadness that disappointed me. Of the four characters in the book, I felt a connection to none of them. At one point, I thought I was going to enjoy Mohsen and Zuneira’s storyline but it changed so quickly that I couldn’t. I also did not enjoy the wordiness of this book. I kept it at a 2 stars because I’m sure that the author did a good job of describing the devastating life and los ...more

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Aug 03, 2018 Rayene Mammeri rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: algerian

i needed a little more time to read this book because of how harsh and provoking some scenes are .
The book is about the sufferance that's going on in kaboul (capital of Afghanistan ) , under the reign of Taliban..
The characters (different social ranges and different points of view ) are Zuneira and her husband who are well educated , university graduates who lost everything , and atiq and his wife ..
And my favorite was Mussarat (such a brave lady , such serenity and so much love and selfness ) ...more

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Jun 01, 2020 Alyna rated it liked it · review of another edition

I would say 3.5 stars if I could. This was definitely a heavy read. The storyline was okay but shed a light on what life is like under the rule of the Taliban which makes it worth reading

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Jun 25, 2010 Amber Tucker rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. About halfway through, for me, this book became un-put-downable. I'll definitely be returning to it.
My favorite quote:
"There's no more painful love than the love you feel when you're in a railroad station and you exchange glance with someone whose train is headed in the other direction." - Mirza Shah
Despite the lack of train stations in war-torn Kabul, this book is full of such glances. Its characters, struggling to stay together and to "keep it" together, draw readers in and don't let go, even About halfway through, for me, this book became un-put-downable. I'll definitely be returning to it.
My favorite quote:
"There's no more painful love than the love you feel when you're in a railroad station and you exchange glance with someone whose train is headed in the other direction." - Mirza Shah
Despite the lack of train stations in war-torn Kabul, this book is full of such glances. Its characters, struggling to stay together and to "keep it" together, draw readers in and don't let go, even after it ends. Yasmina Khadra knows what she's talking about - both as a former officer in the Algerian army, and a portrayer of some chilling intricacies in human nature.

The Swallows of Kabul is about madness. There is the mad discontentment of Atiq, the seemingly heartless jailer who's grown sick of watching his wife die. There is the mad regret of Mohsen, an educated man who finds himself succumbing to the contagion of brutality and is thus hated with mad immovability by his wife. There is madness in pain, there is madness in beauty. Even the minor characters are mad in one way or another; they appear to suffer too much or too little. There is no balance in Kabul; it reeks of Hobbes' state of nature. The backdrop for it all is the madness of the Taliban, which requires no further descriptors and yet is not the most striking element of this story.

The only character who remains truly 'pure-hearted' to the end is Atiq's wife, Musarrat, but while she is likeable, she is also verging on unreal. Her forgiveness, tranquility and self-sacrifice make her less believable than the others. I don't think this is necessarily an authorial flaw. What Khadra does through Musarrat is make us question Goodness, the ideal that she represents, in contrast to those surrounding her. The 'ideal' doesn't make sense (least of all, in what they're each experiencing); the madness does. So what is madness, and is sanity even viable? Madness, as I've indicated above, is many things; it's everywhere. Sanity is, quite possibly, undefinable. By the last page, it seems illusory.

The old and young, ignorant and educated, perpetrators and victims alike are seized by something that, Khadra implies – is not merely forced upon them by civil war but is lying in wait to devour us from within when we allow ourselves to feel the strongest proofs that we are human. Rage, sorrow, fear, even love: they can prove more deadly than landmines or snipers' bullets, and they take centre stage with a horrific grace. The characters and the setting and the lyric prose are merely conduits. This story speaks an unavoidable truth, and it is masterfully told.
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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it · review of another edition

The Swallows of Kabul, whose title derives from the flocks of women in burkas, puts an ordinary face on the Taliban's repressive regime. Mohsen releases his rage by participating in a stoning; his wife feels demeaned walking in public. By focusing on the lives of the two couples and giving the Taliban only walk-on roles, Khadra (the pseudonym for Algerian writer Mohammed Moulessehoul) renders the repression all the more sinister. His spare, taut prose depicts the bleakness that leads ordinary me

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Jul 27, 2007 Renee rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub

In our B/C, we’ve read a bunch of books that deal with Islam in various aspects and countries. The last one we read was a novel called The Swallows of Kabul, by Yasmina Khadra (a pseudonym – the author is an Algerian army officer). Can I just mention how glad I am to be an American, especially seeing as how I’m a woman? Ok, just thought I’d bring that up. The story is set in Taliban-tormented Kabul. No one is having a good time. Khadra brings it home that life is so depressing and ghastly, so so ...more

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About Yasmina Khadra

Yasmina Khadra

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Yasmina Khadra (Arabic: ياسمينة خضراء‎, literally "green jasmine") is the pen name of the Algerian author Mohammed Moulessehoul.
Moulessehoul, an officer in the Algerian army, adopted a woman's pseudonym to avoid military censorship. Despite the publication of many successful novels in Algeria, Moulessehoul only revealed his true identity in 2001 after leaving the army and going into exile and secl ...more