The Swallows of Kabul

Yasmina Khadra

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Two women, two fates, two windows onto a world that has gone mad. Mohsen and Zunaira have been married for six years, but have never truly known each other. Zunaira has not left her home in years, and has no memory of the world before the Taliban. Mohsen works as a customs official, trying to survive by accepting bribes and looking the other way. Their lives are about to intersect with those of Atiq and his wife Musarrat—a former prisoner and a woman who has been ravaged by her circumstances. Together, the two couples are struggling through life in a Taliban-ruled Kabul where women are imprisoned in their homes and men are prisoners of their circumstances. Through the parallel stories of these two couples, Yasmina Khadra offers an unforgettable portrait of life during the Taliban occupation, told with poetic beauty and devastating humanity. This is a novel of desperation and hope, of faith and betrayal—a powerful evocation of the lives of ordinary people trying to maintain their dignity in extraordinary times.