The Lovers by Rod Nordland will feature on the Radio 2 Fact not Fiction Book Club on Friday 12 February.
The book was selected with the help of a panel made up of Reading Agency and library staff from across the UK. Find out more about the non-fiction strand of the Radio 2 Book Club.
You can win 10 copies of The Lovers for your reading group – just visit our Noticeboard.
The Lovers
The Lovers tells the true story of a young Afghan couple from different ethnic backgrounds who are willing to risk everything for love – struggling to stay together in the face of danger and the threat of death that their relationship poses.
This is an astonishingly powerful and profoundly moving portrayal that puts a human face on the ongoing debate about women’s rights in the Muslim world.
The book grew out of a series of articles Rod Nordland wrote for The New York Times in which he described the star crossed lovers as a modern day Romeo and Juliet. Zakia is a Sunni, her lover Mohammad Ali a Shia, and although as children growing up in the same village they would play together, as they grew older contact was strictly forbidden. By that point they were deeply in love.
When the author first encountered the couple, Zakia was locked up in a shelter and Mohammad was forbidden to see her. They escaped and were hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan where Nordland tracked them down as they continued to evade capture. They had no money and no food and relied on the kindness of strangers to give them shelter a day at a time as they remained on the run.
Selection panel review
Our reading panel from libraries and The Reading Agency highly recommend The Lovers – here are some of their comments:
“This is the love story of a girl and boy from different ethnic sects – Zakia is Sunni and Ali is Shia – who are forbidden to marry. As well as the story of The Lovers, I learned a lot about Afghan life. There are many accounts of horrendous treatment of women, but always presented in a factual and not gratuitous way. The author discusses journalistic ethics – by telling the lovers’ story, reporters have made it harder for their families to harm them – but where should they draw the line between reporting and getting involved?”
“Very explicit and at times harrowing account of modern Afghan society. As a reader I wanted a happy ending, but their story continues. Engaging and definitely a good read.”
“A powerful story of love, against a background of violence, religion and misogyny. The author goes above and beyond the normal journalistic role to try to keep Kasia and Ali safe against the odds. A must-read.”
About the author
Rod Nordland is currently a correspondent-at-large for The New York Times, working throughout the Middle East and South Asia; he spent more than three years as the paper’s bureau chief in Kabul. He shared a Pulitzer Prize for reporting in the US, was a Pulitzer Finalist for International Reporting, studied as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, and has received many honors including two George Polk awards and half a dozen Overseas Press Club awards. Rod has worked for three decades as a foreign correspondent in over 150 countries. When not in Kabul, his second home is London.
A Word from Rod
“Zakia and Ali should be dead. That’s what happens to people like them, young Afghans who fall in love and decide to marry without their families’ permission. In their case it was aggravated by coming from different ethnic backgrounds, Tajik and Hazara, and practicing different religions, Sunni and Shia Islam. When I met them in early 2014, Zakia was in a women’s shelter, Ali was in hiding, and they were so out of options that they turned to a Western journalist to plead their case publicly. I didn’t think much would come of it, really, other than her eventual murder, possibly his as well. But when I wrote about it in the NY Times, the reaction was phenomenal, and I have to say, readers shamed me into acting. I became more than just a journalist, chronicling their travails—the sort that in Afghanistan’s hyper-traditional, anti-women culture nearly always end badly. I ended up trying to save them, with help from both Afghan women’s activists, and concerned readers and donors, who poured out their concern, and opened their wallets. They’re still alive now, free, and even have a baby—but they’re also still in danger, and still in hiding. I succeeded in helping them escape an honor killing, but I failed to get them to real safety. I’m hopeful my book will finish that job.
I’m the Kabul Bureau chief, and also international correspondent at large, for the New York Times, and I’ve worked in over 150 countries over more than three decades abroad, including a lot of time in various warzones. I’m so pleased that my book has been chosen for Radio 2’s Fact Not Fiction Book Club, not least because of the role of British librarians in the selection process. I love libraries and the people who run them. Nothing will please me more (other than listening to the Radio 2 book club program, of course) than ducking into my favorite library in the world, the Mayfair Library on South Audley Street, to see if they’ve stocked The Lovers. I know invariably I’ll be seduced into some of their other intelligent selections, and end up under a plane tree in Audley Square, reading them.”
Get involved
Tune in to the Radio 2 Arts Show on Friday 12 February to hear an interview with Rod Nordland talking about his book.
Have you read The Lovers? You can share your thoughts with us on Twitter, or follow author Rod Nordland. You can also post a review or add the book to your reading list.
Want to find out more? Take a look at the Radio 2 Book Club Twitter feed or find out more on the Radio 2 Book Club website.
