Asne Seierstad introduces herself as a wartime reporter, which demands a certain level of respect. Her life's work is to travel through war torn cultures and draw out the stories. In The Bookseller of Kabul, Seierstad tells the story of one Afghan family and wirtes with a voice that subtly establishes authority. Throughout the early chapters of the book, Seierstad references the family often which adds credibility to her writing. Asne Seierstad is foreign and so continuously citing an Afghan family announces to the reader that she doen't have as much experience as they would. By acknowledging this fact, she gains the reader's trust. In addition to this, Seierstad clarifies that the Khan family is upper middle class and fairly wealthy. She states that if she had been with any other family everyday would a "battle for survival." She chose her family because she felt inspired not because she wanted to represent all Afghan families. Seierstad is very aware that her book is not "giving a voice" to Afghanistan as a whole and that she wrote it for literary reasons. Her broad awareness of the variables surrounding her particular experience increases her prestige and proves that she doesn't just see things through a single perspective.
Seierstad uses her selection of storytelling to convey the messages she wishes. In the first 106 pages of the book women are the underlying focus of the stories told. In chapter one Sultan Khan is introduced as the Bookseller and the first thing the reader is told is that he is looking for a new wife. In the rest of the chapter the other event of his proposal are recounted and there is a heavy emphasis on the fact that Sonya, the sixteen year old girl he marries, didn't have a choice. She cried when her parents told her the news but couldn't argue because it wouldn't have made any difference. Seierstad writes what must have been going through Sonya's head when she found out:
"She was petrified by fear. She did not want the man but she knew that she had to obey her parents. As Sultan's wife, her standing in Afghan society would go up considerably. The bride money would solve many of her family's problems. The money would help her parents buy good wives for their sons" (7).
This passage represents Sonya and her struggle, but also many other girls in similar situations. All of the pressures of society, her parents, and money force Sonya to accept her fate, but by including her emotions in the story, Seierstad highlights the injustice of her situation. Another interesting aspect of this passage is the fact that it is written from the Sonya's perspective but in the author's words. In the end when she states that Sonya's parents needed to "buy" wives for their sons, she again zones in on the dehumanization that women faced. They were no more than objects to be passed around. This also can be seen in the following chapters which describe Sharifa's (Sultan's first wife) situation. Since her husband remarried, she lives alone with her daughter in Pakistan and is at Sultan's beck and call. She's a captive and cannot do anything without his permission. By telling her story as well, Seierstad speaks for a woman who cannot speak for herself. It is reasonable to assume that many other are in similar situations and also could not voice their opinions.
Although the family she lived with was not a typical Afghan family economically, it was traditionally. Seierstad knows that she isn't giving those all Afghans a voice, but it is interesting to consider who she is speaking for. Could Seierstad's purpose for this book have been to bring to light the oppression that women in Afghanistan face? It seems to be a reasonable conclusion judging by the content of the first sections of the book, and it will be interesting to discover if this is an enduring theme. Instead of focusing on all Afghans, perhaps Seierstad is choosing to focus on only women. In a culture that is so male-dominated, it seems to be a noble undertaking. Sultan Khan is portrayed as a very self-centered man (not to say that all Afghan men are), but maybe this was her way of showing some of the men in Afghanistan that it isn't "all about them."
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