Live Through This Book: A Guest Post by Åsne Seierstad

Internationally bestselling author Åsne Seierstad lifts the curtain on life in Afghanistan during American presence there and after the return of extremist rule. This is a sharp and powerful depiction of the burdens faced by the country’s inhabitants when promises were broken. Read on for an exclusive essay from Åsne on writing The Afghans.

I was at home in Oslo when I heard the news. It was mid-August 2021 and Taliban forces had just taken control over Afghanistan’s capital Kabul. I knew I had to go back to the country that I had visited 20 years earlier to cover the American revenge after the terror attacks on 9/11. After covering the war, I moved in with a shopkeeper’s family to write The Bookseller of Kabul. There was optimism as Taliban’s fierce restrictions were lifted. Now, 20 years later, the spirit was the opposite: the prospects for the future were grim as the old war lords settled back in.

How could this happen? How could the Taliban win over the most powerful army in the world?

When I went back in 2022, my goal was to get to know the Taliban personally. We knew their ideology – strict Islam coupled with the suppression of women – but we hardly knew them as individuals. Who were they? What motivated them? How did they think? And most importantly: What did they plan to do with the country?

Bashir was a mid-level commander with the Haqqanis, the most lethal group in the country, responsible for most of the terror attacks against American forces. He was living history himself – only three months old when the Soviet forces killed his father – a child when Taliban came to power. He later instructed suicide bombers in the fight against the new “intruders” – NATO and the West.

I spent time in his stolen villa, with him, his two wives, and the third to be – his fiancé of sixteen. I experienced women’s role in the Taliban resistance and got to know the commander’s mother – the matriarch of the family.

In addition to the new rulers, I met the women who now fight against Bashir and his forces. Jamila – Islamic feminist and scholar – fled the Taliban and now lives in Canada, but has kept her office in Kabul open. Her organization still arranges educational courses for women under the new Taliban restrictions, where women are no longer allowed to study or work outside their homes.

One of the young girls who try to defy men like Bashir, is 20-year-old Ariana. A fan of Beyonce and Justin Bieber, she had only one semester left to finish the first part of her law degree when the Taliban closed the university. Her dream was to become a female judge in her country. Instead, many young girls have been forcefully married off, as their parents fear for their future, as Afghanistan suffers under the sanctions imposed because of Taliban rule. 

I spent weeks and months listening to the stories of Bashir, Jamila, Ariana and their relatives, trying to understand their perspective. I hope the reader will be able to get to know people so different from themselves, and “live” their lives through this book.