A Fort Of Nine Towers

Download or read book A Fort of Nine Towers written by Qais Akbar Omar and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-05-09 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'To read this book is to understand Afghanistan as it exists today. This haunting memoir traces the unimaginable odyssey of one family whose world has collapsed . . . Poetic, powerful, and unforgettable.' – Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. A true life account of growing up in Afghanistan, Qais Akbar Omar recounts his happy childhood in Kabul, his journeys with his family across Afghanistan in search of a safe haven, and life under the Taliban rule as a young man. Qais was eleven when a brutal civil war engulfed Kabul. For Qais, it brought an abrupt end to a childhood filled with kites and cousins in his grandfather's garden: one of the most convulsive decades in Afghan history had begun. Ahead lay the rise of the Taliban, and, in 2001, the arrival of international forces. A Fort of Nine Towers is the story of Qais, his family and their determination to survive these upheavals as they were buffeted from one part of Afghanistan to the next. Drawing strength from each other, and their culture and faith, they sought refuge for a time in the Buddha caves of Bamyan, and later with a caravan of Kuchi nomads. When they eventually returned to Kabul, it became clear that their trials were just beginning . . . 'Even more haunting than The Kite Runner, because it's not fiction.' – Philidelphia Inquirer 'Here at last is a powerful memoir that does justice to its tough, tenacious and astonishingly good-humoured people. The best thing about it . . . is that it is a book about Afghanistan written by an Afghan.' – Evening Standard

Download or read book Shakespeare in Kabul written by Stephen Landrigan and published by Haus Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2005, a group of actors in Kabul performed Shakespeare's Love’s Labour's Lost to the cheers of Afghan audiences and the raves of foreign journalists. For the first time in years, men and women had appeared onstage together. The future held no limits, the actors believed. In this fast-moving, fondly told and frequently very funny account, Qais Akbar Omar and Stephen Landrigan capture the triumphs and foibles of the actors as they extend their Afghan passion for poetry to Shakespeare's.Both authors were part of the production. Qais, a journalist, served as Assistant Director and interpreter for Paris actress, Corinne Jaber, who had come to Afghanistan on holiday and returned to direct the play. Stephen, himself a playwright, assembled a team of Afghan translators to fashion a script in Dari as poetic as Shakespeare's. This chronicle of optimism plays out against the heartbreak of knowing that things in Afghanistan have not turned out the way the actors expected.

Download or read book A Night in the Emperor's Garden written by Qais Akbar Omar and published by Haus Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2005, everything seemed possible in Afghanistan. The Taliban was gone. A new government had been elected. A cultural renaissance was energizing the country. An actress visiting from Paris casually proposed to some Afghan actors in Kabul: Why not put on a play? The challenges were huge. It had been thirty years since men and women had appeared on stage together in Afghanistan. Was the country ready for it? Few Afghan actors had ever done theater. Did they even know how? They had performed only in films and television dramas. Still, a company of actors gathered—among them a housewife, a policewoman, and a street kid turned film star. With no certainty of its outcome, they set out on a journey that would have life-changing consequences for all of them, and along the way lead to A Night in the Emperor’s Garden.

Download or read book Our Shared Stories written by Emal Dusst and published by . This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology of 40+ personal stories from around the world. The contributors offer thoughtful reflections about their experiences escaping from the wars in Afghanistan, resettling in host countries, and working to rebuild Afghanistan in the past decade. Book proceeds are dedicated to supporting girls' education in Afghanistan.

Download or read book The Last Thousand written by Jeffrey E. Stern and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the protection of foreign forces, a special place has flourished in Afghanistan. The Marefat School is an award-winning institution in the western slums of Kabul, built by one of the country’s most vulnerable minorities, the Hazara. Marefat educates both girls and boys; it teaches students to embrace the arts, criticize their leaders, interrogate their religion, and be active citizens in a rapidly changing country. But they are dependent on foreign forces for security. When the United States begins to withdraw from Afghanistan, they are left behind, unprotected. Acclaimed journalist Jeffrey E. Stern explores the stakes of war through the eyes of those touched by Marefat: the school’s daring founder and leader, Aziz Royesh; a mother of five who finds freedom in literacy; a clever mechanic; a self-taught astronomer; the school’s security director; and several intrepid students who carry Marefat’s mission to the streets. We see how Marefat has embraced the United States and blossomed under its presence---and how much it stands to lose as that protection disappears. The Last Thousand tells the story of what we leave behind when our foreign wars end. It shows us up close the promise, as well as the peril, of our military adventures abroad. Stern presents a nuanced and fascinating portrait of the complex history of Afghanistan, its American occupation, and the ways in which once community rallies together in compelling, heartbreaking, and inspiring detail.

Download or read book The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam written by Max Boot and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-09 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (Biography) A New York Times bestseller, this “epic and elegant” biography (Wall Street Journal) profoundly recasts our understanding of the Vietnam War. Praised as a “superb scholarly achievement” (Foreign Policy), The Road Not Taken confirms Max Boot’s role as a “master chronicler” (Washington Times) of American military affairs. Through dozens of interviews and never-before-seen documents, Boot rescues Edward Lansdale (1908–1987) from historical ignominy to “restore a sense of proportion” to this “political Svengali, or ‘Lawrence of Asia’ ”(The New Yorker). Boot demonstrates how Lansdale, the man said to be the fictional model for Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, pioneered a “hearts and minds” diplomacy, first in the Philippines and then in Vietnam. Bringing a tragic complexity to Lansdale and a nuanced analysis to his visionary foreign policy, Boot suggests Vietnam could have been different had we only listened. With contemporary reverberations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, The Road Not Taken is a “judicious and absorbing” (New York Times Book Review) biography of lasting historical consequence.

Download or read book Empire of the Summer Moon written by S. C. Gwynne and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-25 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award* *A New York Times Notable Book* *Winner of the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award* This New York Times bestseller and stunning historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West “is nothing short of a revelation…will leave dust and blood on your jeans” (The New York Times Book Review). Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, and the amazing story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Hailed by critics, S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told. Empire of the Summer Moon announces him as a major new writer of American history.