Synopses & Reviews
A sharp and arresting peoples-eye view of real life in Afghanistan after the Taliban Soon after the bombing of Kabul ceased, award-winning journalist and womens rights activist Ann Jones set out for the shattered city, determined to bring help where her country had brought destruction.
Here is her trenchant report from inside a city struggling to rise from the ruins. Working among the multitude of impoverished war widows, retraining Kabuls long-silenced English teachers, and investigating the citys prison for women, Jones enters a large community of female outcasts: runaway child brides, pariah prostitutes, cast-off wives, victims of rape. In the streets and markets, she hears the Afghan view of the supposed benefits brought by the fall of the Taliban, and learns that regarding women as less than human is the norm, not the aberration of one conspicuously repressive regime. Jones confronts the ways in which Afghan education, culture, and politics have repeatedly been hijackedby Communists, Islamic fundamentalists, and the Western free marketeersalways with disastrous results. And she reveals, through small events, the big disjunctions: between U.S promises and performance, between the new democracy” and the still-entrenched warlords, between whats boasted of and what is.
At once angry, profound, and starkly beautiful, Kabul in Winter brings alive the people and day-to-day life of a place whose future depends so much upon our own.
Ann Jones is the author of Women Who Kill, Next Time She'll Be Dead, and Looking for Lovedu. An authority on women and violence, her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times and The Nation. Soon after the bombing of Kabul ceased, award-winning journalist and women's rights activist Ann Jones set out for the shattered city, determined to bring help where her country had brought destruction. Here is her trenchant report from inside a city struggling to rise from the ruins. Working among the multitude of impoverished war widows, retraining Kabul's long-silenced English teachers, and investigating the city's prison for women, Jones enters a large community of female outcasts: runaway child brides, pariah prostitutes, cast-off wives, victims of rape. In the streets and markets, she hears the Afghan view of the supposed benefits brought by the fall of the Taliban, and learns that regarding women as less than human is the norm, not the aberration of one conspicuously repressive regime. Jones confronts the ways in which Afghan education, culture, and politics have repeatedly been hijackedby Communists, Islamic fundamentalists, and the Western free marketeersalways with disastrous results. And she reveals, through small events, the big disjunctions: between U.S promises and performance, between the new "democracy" and the still-entrenched warlords, between what's boasted of and what is. "[A] potent and disturbing new book . . . Jones examines the dire situation of women in postwar Afghanistan. Jones, who spent much time in Kabul's women's prisons and schools, witnessed firsthand the effects of stunning physical and psychological abuse; the result is a book which stirred in me such uncomfortable emotions that I read it with an ever-tightening knot in my stomach and a hand flying regularly upward to cover my horrified mouth . . . Jones quotes a phrase that battered women's shelters used in the seventies as a kind of rallying cry: 'World peace begins at home.' That phrase now strikes me as urgently true."Rosemary Mahoney, O, The Oprah Magazine "[A] potent and disturbing new book . . . Jones examines the dire situation of women in postwar Afghanistan. Jones, who spent much time in Kabul's women's prisons and schools, witnessed firsthand the effects of stunning physical and psychological abuse; the result is a book which stirred in me such uncomfortable emotions that I read it with an ever-tightening knot in my stomach and a hand flying regularly upward to cover my horrified mouth . . . Jones quotes a phrase that battered women's shelters used in the seventies as a kind of rallying cry: 'World peace begins at home.' That phrase now strikes me as urgently true."Rosemary Mahoney, O, The Oprah Magazine "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 "[Jones'] book finely evokes the places [she] came to know . . . She writes perceptively about Washington's cronyism in its funding of development projects."Ahmed Rashid, The New York Review of Books "This is an angry book . . . Here and there an occasional success story offers relief but for the most part the reader must follow Jones through a landscape that is not only bleak but also inconceivably alien to most Western readers . . . There's nothing lightweight about this tale. Jones lards it with plenty of research and history . . . I felt a desire to thank Jones for shining a flashlight on a corner of human experience still so shrouded in shadow. She makes it clear that there are no easy solutionseven as she convinces us that the need for solutions is nothing less than urgent."Marjorie Kehe, The Christian Science Monitor "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 passionateoften grimaccount 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 successthe 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
Review
"A work of impassioned reportage, a sympathetic observer's damage assessment of a country torn apart by warlords, religious fanatics, and ill-advised superpower conflicts dating back more than a century . . . Eloquent and persuasive."--
The New York Times
"[A] potent and disturbing new book."--O, The Oprah Magazine
"Often I felt a desire to thank Jones for shining a flashlight on a corner of human experience still so shrouded in shadow."--The Christian Science Monitor
"We meet many remarkable people in this angry, eloquent book, but none more remarkable than Jones herself."--Harper's
"[An] illuminating and complex book."--Entertainment Weekly "Jones's book gathers power as it goes on . . . and some of her descriptions approach poetry."--The Washington Post
"Chilling . . . Jones's impressions are vividly rendered. . . . This achingly candid commentary brings the country's sobering truths to light."--Booklist
"Jones focuses particularly on Afghan women, whose lives are often permeated by violence. Her sharp eye and quick wit enable vivid writing."--Publishers Weekly
"A passionate--often grim--account of a country and a people trying to find peace after decades of war."--Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
A sharp and arresting people's-eye view of real life in Afghanistan after the Taliban Soon after the bombing of Kabul ceased, award-winning journalist and women's rights activist Ann Jones set out for the shattered city, determined to bring help where her country had brought destruction.
Here is her trenchant report from inside a city struggling to rise from the ruins. Working among the multitude of impoverished war widows, retraining Kabul's long-silenced English teachers, and investigating the city's prison for women, Jones enters a large community of female outcasts: runaway child brides, pariah prostitutes, cast-off wives, victims of rape. In the streets and markets, she hears the Afghan view of the supposed benefits brought by the fall of the Taliban, and learns that regarding women as less than human is the norm, not the aberration of one conspicuously repressive regime. Jones confronts the ways in which Afghan education, culture, and politics have repeatedly been hijacked--by Communists, Islamic fundamentalists, and the Western free marketeers--always with disastrous results. And she reveals, through small events, the big disjunctions: between U.S promises and performance, between the new "democracy" and the still-entrenched warlords, between what's boasted of and what is.
At once angry, profound, and starkly beautiful, Kabul in Winter brings alive the people and day-to-day life of a place whose future depends so much upon our own.
Synopsis
Soon after the bombs stopped falling on Kabul, award-winning journalist and women's rights activist Ann Jones set out for the shattered city. This is her trenchant report from the city where she spent the next four winters working in humanitarian aid. Investigating the city's prison for women, retraining Kabul's long-silenced English teachers, Jones enters the lives of everyday women and men and reveals through small events some big disjunctions: between the new Afghan "democracy" and the still-entrenched warlords, between American promises and performance, between what's boasted of and what is. At once angry, profound, and starkly beautiful, Kabul in Winter brings alive the people and day-to-day life of a place whose future depends upon our own.
About the Author
Ann Jones, writer and photographer, is the author of seven previous books, including War Is Not Over When It's Over, Kabul in Winter, Women Who Kill, and Next Time She'll Be Dead. Since 9/11, Jones has worked with women in conflict and post-conflict zones, principally Afghanistan, and reported on their concerns. An authority on violence against women, she has served as a gender adviser to the United Nations. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times and The Nation.