Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords, and One Woman's Journey Through Afghanistan

(Paperback)

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Afghan-American journalist Fariba Nawa delivers a revealing and deeply personal explorationof Afghanistan and the drug trade which rules the country, from corruptofficials to warlords and child brides and beyond. KhaledHosseini, author of The Kite Runner and AThousand Splendid Suns calls Opium Nation "an insightful andinformative look at the global challenge of Afghan drug trade. Fariba Nawa weaves her personalstory of reconnecting with her homeland after 9/11 with a very engagingnarrative that chronicles Afghanistan's dangerous descent into opiumtrafficking...and most revealingly, how the drug trade has damaged the lives ofordinary Afghan people." Readers of Gayle Lemmon Tzemach'sThe Dressmaker of Khair Khanaand Rory Stewart's The Places Between will find Nawa'spersonal, piercing, journalistic tale to be an indispensable addition to thecultural criticism covering this dire global crisis.

Reviews

"Nawa deftly sketches the geopolitical nightmare that is today's Afghanistan, but the book's real strength is her detailed, sensitive reporting of individual people's stories." -- Boston Globe "Powerful... Nawa draws rich, complex portraits of subjects on both sides of the law ... Nawa's work is remarkable for its depth, honesty, and commitment to recording women's stories, even when it means putting her own safety at risk. She writes with passion about the history of her volatile homeland and with cautious optimism about its future." -- Publishers Weekly "Nawa ably captures the tragic complexity of Afghan society and the sheer difficulty of life there... Her assured narrative clearly stems from in-depth reporting in a risk-laden environment." -- Kirkus Reviews "Insightful and informative... Fariba Nawa weaves her personal story of reconnecting with her homeland after 9/11 with a very engaging narrative that chronicles Afghanistan's dangerous descent into opium trafficking ... [and] how the drug trade has damaged the lives of ordinary Afghan people." -- Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns "Opium Nation brings much needed depth and complexity to any conversation involving Afghanistan and its future. Fariba Nawa writes with the detailed eye of a journalist, the warmth of a proud Afghan and the nuanced perspective of someone effortlessly straddling the East and the West." -- Firoozeh Dumas, author of Laughing Without an Accent and Funny in Farsi "Journalists, policy makers, and scholars have written on the Afghan drug trade, but no one has shown its human drama and toll like Fariba Nawa. [She] offers a unique view of the human side of this conflict in which we are so deeply engaged." -- Barnett R. Rubin, author of The Fragmentation of Afghanistan

Author Bio

Fariba Nawa has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones, The Sunday Times Magazine (London), Newsday, and the Village Voice. She has been a guest on CBS"s 48 Hours as well as numerous other television and radio shows on NPR, the BBC, MTV, and NBC. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two daughters.