The Afghans

In The Bookseller of Kabul, ¿ne Seierstad studied life in Afghanistan during the final days and after the fall of the Taliban regime. Now twenty years later, the Taliban is back in power.

The fall of the western-backed government mirroring the Taliban''s own swift fall two decades earlier. The West promoted ideals of democracy, gender equality and human rights. Why did these ideas not take root? How did the lives of ordinary people change across these two decades? What do the Afghan people think about their country now.

In The Afghans, ¿ne Seierstad seeks to answer these questions. Through the lives of two individuals - one a talib, the other a fugitive from the Taliban - she will consider the choices that brought them to where they are now, on opposing sides of the Afghan war, and explore the history, tradition, religion and culture that led to the current ideological divide.