Life under the Taliban

Reviewed by Carl Muller

There's a book readers will very much like to have if they can get it. It's not available anywhere in Kandy and I tried to worry people in Colombo.

"What" Swallows in Kabul? That's a new one. What is this Kabul - swallowing what?"

I gave up, decided to wait. It'll come my way - and it did. A ruthless condemnation of Afghanistan under the Taliban.

An ICES friend who works in Afghanistan brought me a copy. 'Read and return', he said, "I'm going back in two weeks. I'm at Bamiyan and nobody contacts me there." Pleased? I was more than happy. The book has been published by Doubleday, USA. It would be easy to get a copy.

Bleak novel

'The Swallows of Kabul' is said to be written by Yasmina Khadra, but actually by an Algerian-born army officer, Mohammed Mouselhoul. He had written under a feminine pen-name to evade the censors...and such lyrical heart-breaking prose. It is a bleak novel for there is little subtlety in the opening pages. The author even warns readers that the apocalyptic we are about to enter is not a pretty one. Llet me quote, for I'm reading even as I scribble notes:

"The Afghan countryside is nothing but battlefields, expanses of sand and cemeteries. The cratered roads, the scabrous hills, the white-hot horizon - all seem to say: Nothing will ever be the same again. 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."

But the author does not abandon us in that devastating landscape. it was the narrative skill that made it hard to switch off the light and get some sleep. I was in the writer's own relentless journey through dark, dank alleyways, squalid homes, the blood-soaked public squares of Kabul under Taliban rule. he tells of many executions, unspeakable cruelty and brutal oppression.

Masterpiece

Dear Lord! I haven't yet read an author who has so powerfully conveyed what it feels like to live in a totalitarian society. George Orwell, perhaps, but this book is a masterpiece of misery.

The plot centres round two couples - Atik Shaukat, a cold, uneducated jailor and his terminally ill wife, Musarrat, who he despises. The other is Mosen Ramat and his young feminist wife Zunaira, who refuses to wear the burqa and refuses to leave the home.

Two couples in soulless Kabul!...In a moment of pent-up rage, Zunaira kills her husband. She is dragged away to jail - where Atik is jailor - and he falls deeply in love with her.

Facing death, Atik's wife arranges to take Zunaira's place on the execution block, using her burqa to fool the Taliban executioner. Once Zunaira is out of jail, she flees. She couldn't possibly live with Atik!

This is not the ending I would call good at all. Somehow there is a streak of that old story of the French Revolution and how one man took the place of another and was guillotined. What the Dickens - we all read it. Anyway, Mouselhoul says there will never be happy endings under the Taliban and argues that even as humanity, passion, love, can still thrive under the worst of conditions, it is only under zealots like the Taliban that even these human qualities are doomed.

And what was his fear of censorship? It seems obvious that he took his manuscript to some other Middle East country where ke knew that all such material would be examined before release. The chances of it all being written by a woman would have been passed with ease. Oh, my wife in Singapore.

Writes pages and pages. Drives me crazy sometimes. Anyway, why worry? I've got old college friends in the USA. A copy will soon be on its way.

Spirit and accomplishment

by Carl Muller

George Guy's new biography has revealed much of a queen who was widely reviled in the treacherous world of 16th century Scotland. The work, titled My Heart is My Own: A Life of Mary, Queen of Scots, is published by Fourth Estate, London, and carries a picture of Mary from the memorial portrait of her at Blair's College, Aberdeen.

This biography reads like a thrilling detective story - and is a combination of first-class scholarship and story telling. Guy does say that while Mary was 'undeniably vain, manipulative and headstrong, she was also shrewd, courageous and fiercely committed to the near-impossible task of ruling a quarrelsome country opposed to the idea of a female Ruler.'

At the time of her execution in 1587, Mary had been a failure as Queen of Scholand. She was an acknowledged adulteress, complicit in the murder of her husband, and she had planned to have Elizabeth I assassinated.

Guy says that worst of all, she was a Roman Catholic. He has revealed how her famous 'Casket Letters' written to the Earl of Bothwell, had been doctored by her political enemies, and he insists that while she failed as a ruler, she was of great accomplishment and had, at the age of 13, given an extempore oration in Latin on 'The Education of Women.' The book is a fully rounded depiction of a Queen who he says, 'was flawed by her judgement of men and greatly wronged by historians who were happy to accept the propaganda of her enemies!'

BOOK LAUNCH

Adarayata Baya Minissu

Somaweera Senanayake's Adarayata Baya Minissu (Latest edition) will be relaunched at Dayawansa Jayakody Bookshop, Colombo 10 on July 5 at 10 a.m. Senanayake is an award-winning author who has written many other books such as Raja Kale Punchi Lamai, Mavakage Geethaya, Yasoravaya, Menik Nadiya Galabasi, Paramitha, Andurata Pahanak, Api Tavamat Sansare and Sathun Atara Bosathvaru. Adarayata Baya Minissu is a Dayawansa Jayakody publication.

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The Vengeance

Ananda Liyanage's novel The Vengeance will be launched at the National Library Services and Documentation Board Auditorium, Colombo 7 on July 12 at 4 p.m. Bradman Weerakoon will be the chief guest.

Liyanage is the author of The Legacy and The Deception. The Vengeance is a Foremost Books publication.