“I Am Not a Domestic Tyrant”

Depending on your perspective, the story is either every travel writer’s worst nightmare or the worst nightmare of anyone who has ever invited a writer into his home. Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad was covering the war in Afghanistan when a curious Kabul bookseller invited her to stay with him, to see from the inside what life for locals was like. Seierstad accepted the invitation and wrote a non-fiction book about it, “The Bookseller of Kabul,” which is flying off bookshelves in Europe. Trouble is, the bookseller in question happened to read an English translation of the book, and he doesn’t agree with Seierstad’s conclusion that he is a tyrant, and that the women in his home live in slavery. He was so angered by her portrayal of him, in fact, that he has flown to Europe to speak out against the book, calling it “shameful,” and promising to sue the author.  “There is more than a smattering of irony that a man who loves literature and has devoted himself to publishing now finds his life scarred by a book,” reporter William Wallace writes in a fascinating account of the conflict in the Los Angeles Times. “And it is equally troubling to see a man who risked his life to hide books from both Soviet and Islamic fundamentalist censors now demand that an offending book be banned, stripped from bookstore shelves and burned.” Free registration is required to access the article.

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