The Lovers: Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet, the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
A riveting, real-life equivalent of The Kite Runner—an astonishingly powerful and profoundly moving story of a young couple willing to risk everything for love that puts a human face on the ongoing debate about women’s rights in the Muslim world.
Zakia and Ali were from different tribes, but they grew up on neighboring farms in the hinterlands of Afghanistan. By the time they were young teenagers, Zakia, strikingly beautiful and fiercely opinionated, and Ali, shy and tender, had fallen in love. Defying their families, sectarian differences, cultural conventions, and Afghan civil and Islamic law, they ran away together only to live under constant threat from Zakia’s large and vengeful family, who have vowed to kill her to restore the family’s honor. They are still in hiding.
Despite a decade of American good intentions, women in Afghanistan are still subjected to some of the worst human rights violations in the world. Rod Nordland, then the Kabul bureau chief of the New York Times, had watched these abuses unfold for years when he came upon Zakia and Ali, and has not only chronicled their plight, but has also shepherded them from danger.
The Lovers will do for women’s rights generally what Malala’s story did for women’s education. It is an astonishing story about self-determination and the meaning of love that illustrates, as no policy book could, the limits of Western influence on fundamentalist Islamic culture and, at the same time, the need for change.
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Rod Nordland. (2016). The Lovers: Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet, the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Rod Nordland. 2016. The Lovers: Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet, the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Rod Nordland, The Lovers: Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet, the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing. HarperCollins, 2016.
MLA Citation (style guide)Rod Nordland. The Lovers: Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet, the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing. HarperCollins, 2016.
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Rod Nordland is the New York Times's Pulitzer Prize–winning international correspondent at large. Formerly the paper's Kabul bureau chief, he has worked as a foreign correspondent in more than 150 countries. Previously he was Newsweek's chief foreign correspondent, serving as Baghdad bureau chief from 2003–2005. He was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for news reporting and also a finalist for a Pulitzer in international reporting from Southeast Asia. He has received two George Polk awards; several Overseas Press Club awards, and many other honors. He is the author of The Lovers: Afghanistan's Romeo & Juliet.
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A riveting, real-life equivalent of The Kite Runner—an astonishingly powerful and profoundly moving story of a young couple willing to risk everything for love that puts a human face on the ongoing debate about women’s rights in the Muslim world.
Zakia and Ali were from different tribes, but they grew up on neighboring farms in the hinterlands of Afghanistan. By the time they were young teenagers, Zakia, strikingly beautiful and fiercely opinionated, and Ali, shy and tender, had fallen in love. Defying their families, sectarian differences, cultural conventions, and Afghan civil and Islamic law, they ran away together only to live under constant threat from Zakia’s large and vengeful family, who have vowed to kill her to restore the family’s honor. They are still in hiding.
Despite a decade of American good intentions, women in Afghanistan are still subjected to some of the worst human rights violations in the world. Rod Nordland, then the Kabul bureau chief of the New York Times, had watched these abuses unfold for years when he came upon Zakia and Ali, and has not only chronicled their plight, but has also shepherded them from danger.
The Lovers will do for women’s rights generally what Malala’s story did for women’s education. It is an astonishing story about self-determination and the meaning of love that illustrates, as no policy book could, the limits of Western influence on fundamentalist Islamic culture and, at the same time, the need for change.
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"A hopeful tale of youthful romance, of passion and perseverance against the backdrop of a war ravaged Afghanistan. . . . [Nordland's] skills as a journalist are evident in his rendering of this love blossoming against all odds." — New York Times Book Review
"A rich account of Zakia and Ali's romance that doubles as an indictment of the Afghan patriarchy's abuse of women and the failures of all those in power, inside and outside the country, to curtail it." — Boston Globe
"Nordland offers a stark, eye-opening look at the deplorable state of women's rights in Afghanistan through the travails of a brave, determined young couple." — Booklist, Starred Review
"From the couple's elopement to their elevation to media prominence, Nordland's storytelling remains gripping, with more than a hint of Shakespearean drama." — Publishers Weekly
"Meticulously reported and written, Nordland's book is an exceptionally well-delineated glimpse into the marriage practices of a closed patriarchal society and the suffering it has caused women. A provocative, well-told story of love . . . and an incisive examination of the continued violation of women's rights in Afghanistan." — Kirkus
"An appealing love story of a young couple from neighboring farming families in mountainous northern Afghanistan. ... A heartfelt, readable account for those interested in the personal impact of a decade of American engagement in Afghanistan." — Library Journal
"A captivating account of forbidden love in one of the world's most conservative countries. Nordland takes the reader on his personal journey to save a couple from the inevitable doom of secret love in Afghanistan and reveals an unprecedented window into the country's cultural constraints. — Lynsey Addario, author of It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War
"This sensitive and unblinking portrait of love and injustice somehow encompasses Afghanistan's recent tragedy: hope, suffering, disillusionment, resilience. Rod Nordland has come as close as any Western reporter to the human heart beneath the headlines." — George Packer, author of The Unwinding and The Assassins' Gate
"... a searing analysis of the endemic gender terrorism in a culture where no woman of any age or class . . . is immune from brutality at the hands of her own kinsmen. You will never use the word 'patriarchy' casually after you read it. And read it you must." — Judith Thurman, critic, biographer, and winner of the National Book Award
"Rod Nordland has written a riveting, romantic page-turner about two young people fighting to be together against terrible odds. This is a vitally important book that exposes the abominable treatment of women by a society the U.S., in its ignorance, has fought to preserve." — Susan Adams, senior editor at Forbes
"With The Lovers, Rod Nordland has delivered a true-to-life Romeo & Juliet story that cuts straight to the heart. This saga of Zakia and Ali is raw, poignant, uplifting, and suspenseful, and absolutely compelling throughout." — Jon Lee Anderson, New Yorker staff writer and author of Che Guevara
"Rod Nordland is a master at bringing war down to the human level." — Jill Abramson, former executive editor of the New York Times
"A deeply reported and deeply felt book about true love and its political and personal consequences in one of the most dangerous countries in the world, for journalists and lovers,...
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October 19, 2015
Norland, a New York Times correspondent, meticulously relates the tale of Ali and Zakia, who became Afghanistan’s most famous couple after marrying in 2013 without parental permission and thereby endangering their lives. In so doing, he opens a window onto their country’s fierce resistance to change, particularly regarding the status of women. Mohammad Ali and Zakia, whose fathers owned adjoining fields outside Bamiyan, a city in central Afghanistan, first met as children. They fell in love as teenagers, but his heritage as a Shiite and ethnic Hazara and hers as a Sunni and ethnic Tajik posed seemingly insurmountable barriers. In Nordland’s telling, the pair emerge as fully rounded characters even while serving as symbols of Afghan culture’s stifling restraints. From the couple’s initial elopement to their unexpected elevation to media prominence in 2014—due to the author’s reporting and a media-savvy New Jersey rabbi with connections to the Afghan Ministry of Women’s Affairs—Nordland’s storytelling remains gripping, with more than a hint of Shakespearean drama. The couple’s survival, in the face of familial and societal condemnation, provides a happy if incomplete resolution. Far less uplifting is Nordland’s reporting on the overall situation for women in Afghanistan, a country that Massouda Jalal, former Afghan minister for women’s affairs, calls “the worst place in the world to be a woman.”
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November 15, 2015
A Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist's account of how two young Afghanis from warring ethnic clans risked disgrace and death to wed each other. When Zakia, a Tajik and Sunni Muslim, met Ali, a Hazara and Shia Muslim, both were children growing up in the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan. Though they came from different cultural and religious backgrounds, the pair and their families intermingled freely. But their lives and destinies changed drastically when the two fell in love as teenagers. With keen and nuanced insight, Nordland details the tortuous road that Zakia and Ali traveled in the years that followed. The pair carried on a secret courtship and decided to marry in defiance of Islamic law. At first, they attempted to work within the constraints of cultural traditions that dictated the father choose his daughter's husband. However, the lovers realized that running away would be the only way they could be together. As their relationship intensified, they--and especially Zakia--endured beatings and other forms of humiliation at the hands of their families. Their case went to courts in Bamiyan and then Kabul, where it garnered both national and international media attention. By that point, Zakia and Ali had managed to elope and go into hiding. Outraged by her actions, Zakia's father and brothers swore to hunt down the missing girl and kill her to restore family honor. Nordland became the pair's chronicler in the United States and, later, their unofficial protector when, straining the limits of his professional involvement with them, he began to help the pair financially. Meticulously reported and written, Nordland's book is an exceptionally well-delineated glimpse into the marriage practices of a closed patriarchal society and the suffering it has caused women. The author thoughtfully considers the extent to which the West, acting from the outside, can effect social reform in Muslim fundamentalist cultures. A provocative, well-told story of love at all costs and an incisive examination of the continued violation of women's rights in Afghanistan.COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Starred review from December 15, 2015
Nordland, an international correspondent for the New York Times, chronicles the perilous plight of two star-crossed lovers in Afghanistan. Growing up on neighboring farms in the Bamiyan Valley, Zakia and Ali fell in love as teens. Ali asked Zakia's father, Zaman, for Zakia's hand in marriage, but because they were from different tribes, Zaman refused. This set the lovers on a course that would force them to flee their families in order to marry. Ali's family eventually came around, and Ali's father, Anwar, became the couple's greatest ally. But Zakia's family remained staunchly opposed to the union, going so far as to give up their livelihood to pursue the couple throughout Afghanistan. After writing stories about the couple, Nordland found himself in the difficult position of having to choose between helping them and maintaining his journalistic neutrality. But with Zakia's very life in dangerhe cites numerous examples of young women who have eloped and been returned to their families, only to never be seen againthe author finds himself going to great lengths to help the pair. Nordland offers a stark, eye-opening look at the deplorable state of women's rights in Afghanistan through the travails of a brave, determined young couple.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)
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November 1, 2015
Nordland, a New York Times international correspondent at large, presents an appealing love story of a young couple from neighboring farming families in mountainous northern Afghanistan. Zakia and Ali played together as children and then eloped as teenagers when their families refused to allow them to marry. After fleeing their village, they were chased, imprisoned, and threatened with death by Zakia's family--whose honor had been sullied--and by the pressure of a conservative religious society that denies women legal rights and personal agency. Nordland describes their plight and struggles with the courts and their loved ones while emphasizing the determination of their love. Juxtaposing their moving story against the cruelty, corruption, and lawlessness of a country long at war and lacking protection for women's rights, the author concludes that Zakia and Ali have some hope of a life together. However, he despairs that the current state of education and absence of enlightened political or religious leadership in Afghanistan offers only misery to its citizens, particularly women. VERDICT A heartfelt, readable account for those interested in the personal impact of a decade of American engagement in Afghanistan. [See Prepub Alert, 7/20/15.]--Elizabeth Hayford, formerly with Associated Coll. of the Midwest, Evanston, IL
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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August 1, 2015
A correspondent-at-large for the New York Times who shared a Pulitzer Prize for reporting in the United States, Nordland here chronicles a true Romeo-and-Juliet tale in Afghanistan. Neighbors but from different tribes, Zakia and Ali fell in love and ran away together, defying local custom, civil and religious law, and their families' expectations. They are still in hiding, as Zakia's family seeks to kill her to restore its honor. Nordland's original Times pieces about the couple generated huge website traffic in 2014. With a 100,000-copy first printing.
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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A riveting, real-life equivalent of The Kite Runner—an astonishingly powerful and profoundly moving story of a young couple willing to risk everything for love that puts a human face on the ongoing debate about women’s rights in the Muslim world.
Zakia and Ali were from different tribes, but they grew up on neighboring farms in the hinterlands of Afghanistan. By the time they were young teenagers, Zakia, strikingly beautiful and fiercely opinionated, and Ali, shy and tender, had fallen in love. Defying their families, sectarian differences, cultural conventions, and Afghan civil and Islamic law, they ran away together only to live under constant threat from Zakia’s large and vengeful family, who have vowed to kill her to restore the family’s honor. They are still in hiding.
Despite a decade of American good intentions, women in Afghanistan are still subjected to some of the worst human rights violations in the world. Rod Nordland, then...
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