The Patience Stone in Around the World

Mar 04, 2010 Friederike Knabe rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is an extraordinarily powerful novella, despite being compressed on some 120 pages. The story is both personal, even intimate, and wide-reaching in substance and relevance. At the centre of all comings and goings is one room where a woman attends to her wounded husband...

In a language that is at the same time simple, spare and compressed, yet often poetic, Rahimi evokes the atmosphere in the room and slowly, in sensitively conveyed step, the reader learns to understand the hard life of the ...more

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May 26, 2011 Nazmi Yaakub rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: sastera, novel, terjemahan, perancis, afghanistan

Saya hampir-hampir 'menyangka' pengarang The Patience Stone, Atiq Rahimi pernah membaca Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan sebelum menulis novel keduanya itu. Watak wanita yang tak pernah diberikan namanya itu seolah-olah Jeha yang berbangsa Afghan yang terpaksa mengunyah derita selepas suami mereka ditimpa tragedi.

Hanya saja saya disedarkan tema yang diungkapkan Shahnon Ahmad dalam Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan adalah bersifat sejagat. Boleh berlaku di Banggul Derdap di kawasan pertanian, juga tak mustahil menjal ...more

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Nov 26, 2012 The Book rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: asia, afghanistan

This was a fascinating read for so many reasons; a trapped woman reveals her secrets to a comatose husband who is her master/captor in death as he was in life. She's in a kind of afterlife; there was her life before her husband was shot in the neck, and there's her life afterwards. As she begins to crack under the stress of this new, post-shooting life she finds herself in, she starts to reveal herself to her husband, and as she does so, reveals secrets of Afghan women and society. She purposely ...more

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May 14, 2017 Sue Kozlowski rated it liked it

Shelves: 196-countries, z-196-read-afghanistan

I read this novel as part of my quest to read a book written by an author from every country in the world. This book was written by a writer from Afghanistan.

It is a very short book with short quick chapters. I have retrieved this description from Amazon: "In Persian folklore, Syngue Sabour is the name of a magical black stone, a patience stone, which absorbs the plight of those who confide in it. It is believed that the day it explodes, after having received too much hardship and pain, will be ...more

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Nov 27, 2011 Krittika rated it liked it

Shelves: afghanistan

The story is of a woman in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule, taking care of her comatose husband, and as the story unfolds, she confesses her secrets to him, and unburdens herself in the process…

This book started of as a 2 “it was ok” for me.

Why 2?

The book is written as a screenplay, and that threw me off at first. I actually had to put this book down and walk away, picked it back up after a couple of days and finished it in one sitting. As the story unfolded, I wanted to know more of this w ...more

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Mar 22, 2021 Jo Reason rated it really liked it

Shelves: 4-star-reads, read-the-world

The Patience Stone is about a woman looking after her bed ridden husband after a war accident in Afghanistan.

This is a very emotional book, a very short book at only 142 pages, it can be easily read in one sitting, which I did, an unknown and nameless woman taking care of her injured and helpless husband, he is lying on the floor, unable to move, eat, etc. the wife needs to do everything for him. She wants him to get better, they have young children together.

She talks to him, sometimes day and ...more

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