The Finest Hotel in Kabul

The Finest Hotel in Kabul tells the story of Afghanistan through the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul, a sexy splash of glamour in a poor, mostly illiterate country when it opened in 1969. Afghanistan was a kingdom then and in the years since, the hotel and its staff have seen coups, a Soviet invasion, a Marxist dictatorship, civil war, the Taliban, western invasion and occupation, the Taliban again. Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent, does a terrific, novelistic job of telling the story of the people who’ve worked there and what this tumultuous change has meant for them. * ROBBIE MILLEN, The Times *
An incredible book – vivid and beautifully written, it captures the soul of Afghanistan through an age of hopes and heartbreak, as well as one of constant change. A tender, wise and quietly devastating book. * PETER FRANKOPAN, author of The Silk Roads *
An ingenious method of storytelling, and what a story the Inter-Continental Kabul has to tell. Lyse Doucet writes with verve and insight, and a clear warmth of feeling for Afghanistan and its people. * KAMILA SHAMSIE, author of Home Fire *
The Finest Hotel in Kabul plays to all Lyse Doucet’s strengths. Clarity, empathy, depth of knowledge and innate grasp of fine detail. Her subject is not just a hotel, but a hotel that tells the story of four decades of Afghanistan’s proud and sometimes unbelievably painful history. This is a most readable account of joy, despair and resilience in one of the world’s most fascinating countries. * MICHAEL PALIN *
As with the voice, so with the book: distinct, original, humane, powerful and utterly compelling. * PHILIPPE SANDS, author of East West Street *
A book brimming with deep insight, courage and conscience. Everyone should read this. Astonishingly beautiful, subtle and simply unforgettable. * ELIF SHAFAK, author of There Are Rivers in the Sky *
A story of a country and a people, told with knowledge, insight and tenderness. I’ve been waiting for a Lyse Doucet book for a long time and what she has produced here is testament to her humanity as well as her journalistic eye. * MISHAL HUSAIN, author of Broken Threads *
Charming and often surprising . . . What sustains the book is Doucet’s focus on the ordinary Afghans who keep the place going despite the shelling, rockets, suicide bombs and occasional massacres of both staff and guests . . . the hotel remains a monument to Afghan resilience and to the bravery and persistence of its staff. In Doucet, and her witty, observant and sometimes heartbreaking book, they have found a worthy chronicler. * WILLIAM DALRYMPLE, GUARDIAN *
The Finest Hotel in Kabul offers an unflinching and intimate portrait of contemporary Afghanistan, from the hopeful days following the fall of the Taliban’s first regime to the chilling return of fear under their second rule. At the heart of the story is a woman who prepares food with her hands, yet in doing so, is quietly shaping the future. As the Taliban return, laughter fades, and like thousands of other women, she is pushed to the margins. This book is a powerful historical account of lives lived in the crossfire of conflict and power, a story too rarely heard, and too often overlooked. Broken promises of peace for a people who have lived, generation after generation, in the shadow of war and politics. * ZAHRA JOYA, founder of Rukhshana Media *
What a beautiful book – inventive, compassionate, witty, brilliantly structured. An extraordinary introduction to Afghanistan, and a tribute to one of the finest correspondents of our age. * RORY STEWART, author of Politics On the Edge and The Places in Between *
Deftly drawn. The book does many things. It offers a clever and informed social history of Kabul over more than five decades; a useful account of the politics of Afghanistan throughout the same period; a glimpse of how foreign correspondents once worked in the days before WiFi and social media; and an insight into the lives of ordinary people who lived with astonishing resilience through almost a dozen different regimes, half a dozen wars, repeated coups and a great deal of hardship. Unlike most books written by foreigners about Afghanistan, Doucet’s foregrounds Afghan voices. . . But there are answers to some of the bigger questions in the carefully observed details. * JASON BURKE, SPECTATOR *
Lyse Doucet is a consummate storyteller and first class journalist . . . A powerful and evocative account of a people who have borne tumultuous waves of progress and repression, from mini skirts and white weddings to burqas and gross Taliban denials of freedoms. A brilliant and important reminder of the cost of wars. * HELENA KENNEDY *
A deeply humane story of Afghanistan revealing the impact of decades of upheaval on everyday lives. * JUDGES OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION *
Drawing on her more than 30 years of reporting from that country, it is a captivating debut in which Doucet gives herself only a tiny walk-on part. Instead, she centres the lives and recollections of those who have worked at Kabul’s renowned Inter-Continental Hotel across five decades . . . The Finest Hotel in Kabul concludes in a spirit of enduring optimism, or at least with the inshallah tenacity that seems to characterise the Afghan people. -- BOOK OF THE MONTH * THE BOOKSELLER *
Fabulous . . . A cross between the novel A Gentleman in Moscow and Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. Doucet has taken the Hotel Inter-Continental on the hill overlooking Afghanistan’s capital and written about the country’s hopes, travails, invasions and civil wars using the people who came through the increasingly battered doors. -- ALICE THOMSON * THE TIMES *
It is the day-to-day life of the hotel, its guests and staff, brilliantly captured by Doucet, that most vividly reflects the country's history . . . It is difficult to think of anyone as well qualified to write a book about the hotel as Doucet. It is not just that she has been a regular visitor there since 1988. It's also that she has an extraordinary sensitivity to the experiences of individuals, no matter their station . . . Rich in detail, moving and never wearisome. * LITERARY REVIEW *
Full of warmth, wit, and a lovely eye for the human stories that make the hotel not just a monument to tragedy, but also love and resilience . . . This is the book about an Afghanistan I never knew that I always wanted to read . . . What Doucet achieves is both powerful and charming at the same time. The Finest Hotel in Kabul is a meditation on memory, resilience, and the strange intimacy of public spaces. In an age when most hotels blur into the anonymous comfort of global chains, the Inter-Con reminds us that some buildings are so much more. * FINANCIAL TIMES *
This is a remarkable book about a remarkable institution in a remarkable country by a remarkable journalist. It should be read, and reread, by every “statesman”, politician, diplomat and op-ed writer who has pontificated about Afghanistan since that country came back on to the radar screens of the West in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. And for those who have not been so presumptuous as to suppose that they knew what was best for Afghanistan, Lyse Doucet’s new book will be an enjoyable if at times deeply upsetting read, a reminder that, however much we human beings study history, we seldom learn from it. * THE TABLET *
It should come as no surprise that the BBC’s chief international correspondent, Lyse Doucet – a familiar face and voice from years of reporting from conflict zones around the world – is a gifted storyteller. But even by her high standards, this account of the tribulations that have beset Afghanistan in recent decades, as seen through the eyes of ordinary Afghans working at Kabul’s premier international hotel, the Inter-Continental, has a wonderfully human touch . . . A masterly evocation of a supremely complex decade in Afghanistan’s history. * TELEGRAPH *
Doucet is a must-watch, always alive to the personal stories and tribulations of the people she encounters. But is she a must-read? On the evidence of The Finest Hotel in Kabul . . . the answer must be a resounding yes . . . Doucet is a consummate storyteller who can recognise a great yarn when she sees one . . . The real strength of this book is her ability to get under the skin of a country through its people. Perhaps thanks to her many years of reporting in Afghanistan, she embraces ordinary men and women and allows them to do the talking . . . Haunting, hopeful and occasionally harrowing, The Finest Hotel in Kabul is much more than a history. It is a love letter to Afghanistan and its people. -- BOOK OF THE WEEK * SUNDAY TIMES *
The history of [Doucet's] “first Afghan home” – Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel – through the eyes of its staff, men and women, young and old, whose personal tales encapsulate those of a whole nation . . . Rich in evocative detail after countless hours of interviews, including with people who worked there from the start. * iPAPER *
The Finest Hotel in Kabul gives a unique, human insight into Afghanistan’s history, weaving together the stories and lives of those who worked at one particular hotel during the country’s turbulent history . . . Lyse Doucet does well to present individual tales of resilience, ambition, hope and grief, giving a deeper account of the Afghanistan we mostly know from headlines. This is well worth a read for a compassionate understanding of modern Afghanistan and its people, through the lens of the daily interactions at a hotel still standing today. * PRESS ASSOCIATION *
The Finest Hotel in Kabul weaves together their stories – personal ambitions, tragedies, loves, triumphs, losses – against a backdrop of near-constant political turmoil. There is a dreamlike quality to [Doucet’s] writing, to the leitmotifs of these emphatically un-dreamlike events. The sense of intimacy Doucet creates, made possible only by the trust built up over years with her subjects, turns a dizzying string of key dates and turning points into something more akin to immersive theatre. It's epic, told on an intricately domestic scale, through tablecloths and faulty telephone lines and the most luxurious of towels . . .[Doucet’s] longstanding love of the hotel over more than 40 years shines through in the meticulous, almost painfully vivid descriptions . . . If there is an underlying theme amid the tangled strands of memory, politics and power dynamics, it is one of resilience. * NEW STATESMAN *
Doucet is a humane narrator with an eye for detail; she conveys her characters' suffering and resilience . . . It is fascinating to read how the InterCon has been buffeted by history. Many of the people Ms Doucet describes no longer work there. Yet the message of her book is extremely salutary. Regimes can outstay their welcome, but not forever. * ECONOMIST *
Nuanced and affectionate . . . Through the personal stories of the hotel’s staff and its clientele, she tells of Afghanistan’s tortuous journey from monarchy to Soviet occupation, civil war to the Taliban, then back to the Taliban via a 20-year interlude of state-building backed by the west. The heart of the book is in the lives of ordinary people, as extraordinary world events play out . . . This is a beautifully written and observed book by one of the finest journalists of her generation. * OBSERVER *