booktrade.info - Opinion - Bookseller Of Kabul Author Can't Plead Cultural Immunity

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Monday 13th February

Bookseller Of Kabul Author Can't Plead Cultural Immunity

Posted at 10:40AM Saturday 31 Jul 2010

The biggest conceptual weakness of Seierstad's book is that she does not seem to have understood the absolute centrality of the concepts of "hospitality" and "namos" (literally the "status, chastity, purity, virtuousness, and nobleness of the female members of the family") to Afghan society. The idea that you could accept someone's hospitality and then spy on them to violate their namos is completely shocking and makes a mockery of all her other claims of insight into the society in which she was living.

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