Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan

"In her aptly titled Kabul in Winter, Ann Jones, a journalist and women's rights activist, presents an especially bleak portrait of post-Taliban Afghanistan, depicting a cruel and opportunistic place where foreign aid money vanishes into a thousand tunic pockets, where women are trapped in prisons of family and cultural tradition, and where concepts such as accountability and the rule of law are often viewed as naive, foreign abstractions. Much of what Jones writes rings true, especially about the thick barriers that thwart her attempts to promote the legal rights of Afghan women. And some of her descriptions approach poetry: 'Kabul in winter is the color of the dust . . . a fine particulate lifted by winds from old stone mountains and sifted over the city like flour . . . Dust fills the lungs, tightens the chest, lies in the eyes like gravel, so that you look out on this obscure drab landscape always through something like tears' . . . Jones's book gathers power as it goes on, and her anger serves her increasingly well as she compiles a painstaking litany of frustrations and failures in her mission to help Afghan women . . . Jones's bitterness is understandable."—Pamela Constable, The Washington Post Book World

 

"As an observer and analyst of Afghan society, and of the multiple problems bedeviling it, [Ann Jones] can be eloquent and persuasive. Above all, she is a compassionate voice for the plight of Afghan women, who, on her evidence, will have to make enormous strides to move from miserable to merely abject."—William Grimes, The New York Times

 

 

"A writer who has focused on violence against women travels to Afghanistan after the American-led invasion and finds plenty to write about. Shaken by the Sept. 11 attacks and the 'strut and bluster' of America's president, New Yorker Jones seeks to do something about it. In 2002, she moves to Kabul, volunteers at a small non-profit dedicated to assisting the country's thousands of war widows and also begins to teach English to local educators. She finds a country traumatized from years of war and violence, where women, who struggle under an oppressive patriarchy, are locked in prison for 'crimes' such as being forced into prostitution by their husbands. Jones visits others who have been hospitalized after setting themselves on fire out of shame because they did not bleed after having sex on their wedding nights. Jones writes angrily of the divide between the upbeat reports Americans see on the news and receive from political leaders, and the harsh reality of life in Afghanistan. She details the blunders of the well-funded but often misguided international community, which throws millions of dollars at projects that have little impact on the daily lives of the country's people. From the Afghan perspective, Jones writes, foreign aid workers live like kings, riding around in large SUVs and grabbing the city's best housing. In the meantime, Afghanistan has reestablished itself as the world's leading opium supplier, with profits from the trade flowing to warlords and politicians alike. The story is most captivating when Jones . . . describes the women she meets in the course of her work . . . A passionate—often grim—account of a country and a people trying to find peace after decades of war."—Kirkus Reviews

 

"In this chilling account, Jones, a native New Yorker, recounts her experiences as an aid worker in prisons and schools in post-Taliban Afghanistan. While she explores many elements of Afghani culture (including the macabre national sport of buzkashi, in which horseback riders battle for possession of a dead calf), the subservient status of Muslim women is the topic that interests her most. She evokes a world of outcasts, from war widows to prostitutes to runaway child brides. Ninety-five percent of Afghan women are subject to violence: they are bought and sold, beaten and raped, preyed upon and betrayed by their own flesh and blood . . . Her impressions are vividly rendered: 'Kabul in winter is a state of mind, a mix of memory and desire that lifts like dust in the wind to hide from view the world as it is.' This achingly candid commentary brings the country's sobering truths to light."—Allison Block, Booklist

 

"In February 2003, Jones and her fellow NGO relief workers watched with disbelief and horror as Fox News declared the American war in Afghanistan a success—the Taliban totally defeated, all Afghan women 'liberated' and the infrastructure completely restored. The reality they knew on the ground in Kabul was starkly different. Jones presents her version of the events in this fascinating volume, which tours Kabul's streets, private homes, schools and women's prison. The political and military history of Afghanistan, as well as its cultural and religious traditions, inform Jones's daily interactions and observations. Describing an English class she taught, for example, Jones says, 'Once, after I explained what blind date meant, a woman said, "Like my wedding."' Jones focuses particularly on Afghan women, whose lives are often permeated by violence. Her sharp eye and quick wit enable vivid writing, as when she witnesses a fistfight from her traffic-blocked car: an old man hit by a cyclist socks the cyclist, a young man punches the old man, then a traffic cop joins and socks the young man. Seconds later, all get up and continue on their way."—Publishers Weekly