The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A Peoples History of Afghanistan

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The story of a hotel. The story of a nation. When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan's first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world. More than fifty years on, the Inter-Continental is still standing. It has endured Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a grievous civil war, a US invasion and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. History lives within its scarred windows and walls. Lyse Doucet, the BBC's Chief International Correspondent, has been checking into the Inter-Continental since 1988. And here, she uses its story to craft a richly immersive history of modern Afghanistan. It is the story of Hazrat, the septuagenarian housekeeper who still holds fast to his Inter-Continental training from the hotel's 1970s glory days - an era of haute cuisine and high fashion, when Afghanistan was a kingdom and Kabul was the 'Paris of Asia'. It is the story of Abida, who became the first female chef to cook in the Inter-Con's famous kitchen after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. And it is the lives of Malalai and Sadeq, the twenty-something staff who seized every opportunity offered by two decades of fragile democracy - only to witness the Taliban roaring back in 2021. The result is a remarkably vivid history of how Afghans have survived a half century of destruction and disruption. It is the story of a hotel but also the story of a people.

Reviews

An incredible book vivid and beautifully written, it captures the soul of Afghanistan through an age of hopes and heartbreak, as well as one of constant change. A tender, wise and quietly devastating book. * PETER FRANKOPAN, author of THE SILK ROADS *
An ingenious method of storytelling, and what a story the Inter-Continental Kabul has to tell. Lyse Doucet writes with verve and insight, and a clear warmth of feeling for Afghanistan and its people. * KAMILA SHAMSIE, author of Home Fire *
The Finest Hotel in Kabul plays to all Lyse Doucets strengths. Clarity, empathy, depth of knowledge and innate grasp of fine detail. Her subject is not just a hotel, but a hotel that tells the story of four decades of Afghanistans proud and sometimes unbelievably painful history. This is a most readable account of joy, despair and resilience in one of the worlds most fascinating countries. * MICHAEL PALIN *
As with the voice, so with the book: distinct, original, humane, powerful and utterly compelling. * PHILIPPE SANDS, author of East West Street *
A book brimming with deep insight, courage and conscience. Everyone should read this. Astonishingly beautiful, subtle and simply unforgettable. * ELIF SHAFAK, author of There Are Rivers in the Sky *
A story of a country and a people, told with knowledge, insight and tenderness. Ive been waiting for a Lyse Doucet book for a long time and what she has produced here is testament to her humanity as well as her journalistic eye. * MISHAL HUSAIN, Sunday Times bestselling author of Broken Threads *
The Finest Hotel in Kabul offers an unflinching and intimate portrait of contemporary Afghanistan, from the hopeful days following the fall of the Talibans first regime to the chilling return of fear under their second rule. At the heart of the story is a woman who prepares food with her hands, yet in doing so, is quietly shaping the future. As the Taliban return, laughter fades, and like thousands of other women, she is pushed to the margins. This book is a powerful historical account of lives lived in the crossfire of conflict and power, a story too rarely heard, and too often overlooked. Broken promises of peace for a people who have lived, generation after generation, in the shadow of war and politics. * ZAHRA JOYA, founder of Rukhshana Media *
What a beautiful book inventive, compassionate, witty, brilliantly structured. An extraordinary introduction to Afghanistan, and a tribute to one of the finest correspondents of our age. * RORY STEWART, author of Politics On the Edge and The Places in Between *
Lyse Doucet is a consummate storyteller and first class journalist . . . A powerful and evocative account of a people who have borne tumultuous waves of progress and repression, from mini skirts and white weddings to burqas and gross Taliban denials of freedoms. A brilliant and important reminder of the cost of wars. * HELENA KENNEDY *

Author Bio

Lyse Doucet first arrived at the Kabul Inter-Continental Hotel on Christmas Day 1988, the day after her thirtieth birthday. Visiting Afghanistan to cover the withdrawal of Soviet troops following their disastrous decade-long occupation, she was immediately taken by the faded grandeur of the hotel and the warm hospitality of its staff. Over the course of the next four decades, Lyse would report on many of the most significant moments in world history - from the Arab Spring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and many wars in the Middle East - ultimately becoming one of the world's best-respected war correspondents and the Chief International Correspondent for the BBC. But through everything, she has always found herself drawn back to her Afghan home, the hotel most people just call the 'Inter-Con'. Here, she draws upon years of conversations with its staff and guests to tell the story that only she can.