by Lyse Doucet
First published 2025
Lyse Doucet chronicles modern Afghanistan through the lens of Kabul's Hotel Inter-Continental, which opened in 1969 as a symbol of the country's modernization hopes. The BBC's Chief International Correspondent first stayed at the hotel in 1988 and returned repeatedly over decades of upheaval. The Inter-Continental never closed its doors through Soviet withdrawal, civil war, US invasion, and Taliban transitions. Doucet centers her narrative on the Afghan staff who kept the hotel operating: Hazrat, a septuagenarian housekeeper trained during the 1970s era when Kabul was called the "Paris of Central Asia"; Abida, who became the first female chef after 2001; and Malalai and Sadeq, young Afghans who embraced democratic opportunities before the Taliban's 2021 return. Through these personal stories, Doucet constructs a people's history that transforms one building's experience into a window on Afghanistan's turbulent modern journey.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, memoir, non-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: humanizing, intimate, reflective, resilient, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, personal-narrative, witness-to-history
Setting: Afghanistan, Kabul, Hotel Inter-Continental, Central Asia
Period: 1969, 1970s, 1988, 2001, 2021, Soviet withdrawal, civil war, US invasion, Taliban transitions
448 pages · Paperback · Penguin
Content warnings: colonialism, war