Drunk Chickens and Burnt Macaroni: Real Stories of Afghan Women - Softcover

Smith, Mary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1907401946 ISBN 13: 9781907401947

Verlag: Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2012

Über diesen Titel

Críticas

Here in the fluent account of a Scottish aid worker are the tribulations and joys of ordinary Afghan men and (especially) women after the social and educational collapse of the Russian occupation, during the chaos of the Mujahideen victory a period of no winners, only losers and under the medieval-modernist madness of the Taliban. Before the Taliban is honest and unsentimental, intimate and comical, bringing Afghanistan into focus beyond the headlines and political posturings. It s also a tale of cultural interaction in which Mary Smith questions her own assumptions and misconceptions as much as those of the Afghans she meets and works with. --Robin Yassin-Kassab

At last, a book about Afghanistan written by someone who not only lived and worked there for several years but who obviously has a deep understanding and fondness for this troubled land and its peoples. As the mother of a serving British soldier, I have looked high and low for information that would help me understand why my son and so many others feel that their struggle in Afghanistan is 'right'. Ms Smith has helped by introducing the reader of this truly beautiful book to some of the people, mostly women, with whom she lived. I embarrassed myself and my husband by bursting into tears on a train while reading about the struggles of some of these remarkable women; an hour later, I found myself laughing out loud at the antics of others. 'Cry for another beloved country' for until we can reason with the unreasoning and unreasonable we will continue to weep for Afghanistan. Perhaps if this book were to be required reading in schools and universities, the faint growing hope for a more just future for the women of Afghanistan - which Ms Smith feels on a visit back to Afghanistan - might well become a reality. Insha'Allah. --Eileen Ramsay

This is a timely new edition of Mary Smith's Before the Taliban. For many of us in the west, Afghanistan has come to mean the Taliban, precision bombing and the mutilations and killings of guerrilla warfare. The time-line of Mary Smith's book encompasses all of that, but, for the most part, it reaches back to a time when ordinary friendship was possible between the writer and the Afghan women with whom she worked and lived: for the pleasures of friendship itself, but also because, Only by listening to ordinary Afghan women can we learn what they think and feel about their situation and what they want to see happen in their country . This is the guiding principle of this updated memoir, which, for all the horrors Afghanistan has experienced, is enlivened by a deep love for its landscape, its customs and, most especially, its resilient people. --Tom Pow

Reseña del editor

Drunk Chickens and Burnt Macaroni provides a remarkable insight into the lives of women in Afghanistan. Despite the hardships in their lives - and there are many - they are not all helpless downtrodden victims but women of courage, determined to make the best of life for themselves and their families. Mary Smith, who worked in Afghanistan for several years, takes readers on a journey from the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif to the remote mountainous region of Hazara Jat, allowing them to get to know these women and their families.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Indigo Dreams Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1907401946
• ISBN 13: 9781907401947
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Sprache: Englisch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 330