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The World is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village
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The World is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village Hardcover - 2013

by Badkhen, Anna

  • Used
  • Hardcover

Description

Riverhead Books. Used - Acceptable. Former Library book. Hardcover The item is fairly worn but still readable. Signs of wear include aesthetic issues such as scratches, worn covers, damaged binding. The item may have identifying markings on it or show other signs of previous use. May have page creases, creased spine, bent cover or markings inside. Packed with care, shipped promptly.
Used - Acceptable
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Details

  • Title The World is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village
  • Author Badkhen, Anna
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition First
  • Condition Used - Acceptable
  • Pages 271
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Riverhead Books, United States.
  • Date 2013-05-30
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Bookseller's Inventory # A-03-3569
  • ISBN 9781594488320 / 1594488320
  • Weight 0.88 lbs (0.40 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.42 x 6.45 x 1.01 in (21.39 x 16.38 x 2.57 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Library of Congress subjects Afghanistan - Social life and customs, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2013003827
  • Dewey Decimal Code 305.409

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Summary

An unforgettable portrait of a place and a people shaped by centuries of art, trade, and war.

In the middle of the salt-frosted Afghan desert, in a village so remote that Google can’t find it, a woman squats on top of a loom, making flowers bloom in the thousand threads she knots by hand. Here, where heroin is cheaper than rice, every day is a fast day. B-52s pass overhead—a sign of America’s omnipotence or its vulnerability, the villagers are unsure. They know, though, that the earth is flat—like a carpet.

Anna Badkhen first traveled to this country in 2001, as a war correspondent. She has returned many times since, drawn by a land that geography has made a perpetual battleground, and by a people who sustain an exquisite tradition there. Through the four seasons in which a new carpet is woven by the women and children of Oqa, she immortalizes their way of life much as the carpet does—from the petal half-finished where a hungry infant needs care to the interruptions when the women trade sex jokes or go fill in for wedding musicians scared away by the Taliban. As Badkhen follows the carpet out into the world beyond, she leaves the reader with an indelible portrait of fates woven by centuries of art, war, and an ancient trade that ultimately binds the invaded to the invader.

From the publisher

Anna Badkhen has won awards for her reporting from the Middle East, Central Asia, East Africa, and her native Russia and the Caucasus. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, and other publications. The author of Peace Meals and other nonfiction books, she lives in Philadelphia.

Media reviews



"Like so many pieces of yarn, [Badkhen] weaves the words of Persian poets, Western explorers, contemporary journalists and scholars into her narrative, enriching her own account with those that came before… a powerful, unsentimental study of life persisting in extreme conditions. Perhaps the greatest testament to her success is that, upon reading the final page, the reader wonders how the people populating her narrative are faring, and desperately hopes that they are all right." –The New York Observer

“Capture[s] the fatalistic ambience of a place where opium addiction is rampant, mobile phones are an impossible luxury and the Taliban lurk in the shadows.” –The New York Times Book Review

“Transporting… even in this harshest of environments, Badkhen is able to capture kinship, laughter, and merriment… At the risk of spouting clichés (but don’t they become such because of the universal truths buried within?), Badkhen weaves her own literary magic.” –Christian Science Monitor

“Intrepid… Season by season, rite by rite, encounter by encounter, thread by illuminating thread, Badkhen weaves a glorious prose carpet that poignantly captures the surface and the soul of life in Oqa, and in all the Oqas that grace the loom of Afghanistan.” –National Geographic

“This book will leave you entertained, informed and heartbroken. It will allow you not only to imagine another place but also to bear witness to a community of cultural producers and preservers of the highest skill whose women are able to create objects of beauty amid poverty, hardship and bloodshed.” –Toronto Star

“Anna Badkhen is the latest chronicler to show how great beauty can come out of great deprivation… borders on the sublime. The World is a Carpet is a well-spun tale of a remote world we rarely see.” –Financial Times

"The World Is a Carpet will give readers a better understanding of this mysterious land and the courageous and determined people who live there… gorgeous… a lovely treasure unearthed from beneath those shifting desert sands." –Dayton Daily News

"Badkhen makes friends and shares their stories, drawing readers into this small village where the dream of wealth is hope for a life without suffering… A beautifully written book of eternal heartbreak." –Booklist (starred review)

"Badkhen gains astonishing access… More travelogue than reportage, her prose is rich and unhurried, evoking the harshness of the desolate landscape. Oqa's isolation means Osama bin Laden may be unknown, but the Taliban is not; their presence an inescapable fact of life, one that propels Badkhen's story to a simple yet chilling dénouement." –Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A fearless author regards the Afghans on their own terms… Enormously detailed and moving…­ a dense, intimate portrayal of an ancient people.” –Kirkus

"In an age when writers too often see Afghanistan from behind guarded compound walls, Badkhen places herself alone, for a year, in rural Afghanistan. This perspective—animated by her love of the country, and her hosts—yields a remarkable account of the rhythms, the wit, and the energy of village life." –Rory Stewart, author of The Places in Between

"Nearly a hundred and eighty degrees around the globe, and even farther from our imagining, Anna Badkhen captures with an unerring eye—and just as powerfully, in the haunting cadences of her narrative—the strange, harsh beauty of an unvanquished way of life." –William Langewiesche, author of Sahara Unveiled, American Ground, and The Outlaw Sea

About the author

Anna Badkhen has won awards for her reporting from the Middle East, Central Asia, East Africa, and her native Russia and the Caucasus. Her writing has appeared in "The New York Times," "Foreign Policy," "The New Republic," "The Boston Globe," and other publications. The author of "Peace Meals "and other nonfiction books, she lives in Philadelphia.

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