To describe this novel as reserved may seem unusual. However, whereas Volckmer’s previous novel, The Appointment, explored a German woman’s sexual fantasies about the Führer, this examines the more restrained fantasies (sexual and otherwise) of a queer Italian working in a call centre. If you’re wondering about the tone of the novel, consider the epigraph borrowed from Thomas Bernhard – “Instead of committing suicide, people go to work” – or the cover art, wherein a gender nonconforming worker derives pleasure from their headset.
High on slapstick and low on humanity, this novel will make you feel. You may enjoy that feeling. You may not.
Brigid O’Dea “Killing is easy, being killed is easy. Governing fairly is something else”. The last time Norwegian author Seierstad wrote about Afghanistan was in her bestselling The Bookseller of Kabul, at a time when the Taliban had fallen from power.
Now they are back. The Taliban’s ascendancy is told, through the portrait of three main figures: Jamila, a women’s rights activist, whose disability granted her a freedom rare to her gender; Bashir, a Taliban commander who began his jihadist journey at the age of 12; and Ariana, whose future lies at the centre of the tug of war between competing ideologies. With a lens focused on women’s lives under the patriarchal regime, The Afghans is a gripping tale of violence, oppression, hubris, distrust, bravery and dogged resilience.
Brigid O’Dea [ Vindication for Booksel.
