We look forward to seeing you on your next visit to the library. Find a location near you.

The Lovers: Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet, the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)

Book Cover
Average Rating
5 star
 
(0)
4 star
 
(0)
3 star
 
(2)
2 star
 
(1)
1 star
 
(0)
Published:
HarperAudio 2016
Status:
Checked Out
Description

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.

Also in This Series
Formats
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
Works on MP3 Players, PCs, and Macs. Some mobile devices may require an application to be installed.
OverDrive Listen
Need Help?
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
More Like This
Other Editions and Formats
More Copies In LINK+
Loading LINK+ Copies...
More Details
Format:
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen
Edition:
Unabridged
Street Date:
01/26/2016
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780062444684
Reviews from GoodReads
Loading GoodReads Reviews.
Citations
APA 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. Unabridged HarperAudio.

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. HarperAudio.

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. HarperAudio, 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. Unabridged HarperAudio, 2016.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Copy Details
LibraryOwnedAvailable
Shared Digital Collection10

There is 1 hold on this title.

Staff View
Grouped Work ID:
c6219fa5-d2f1-ff39-2b89-feedf3fae4a9
Go To Grouped Work
Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 15:11:04
Date Updated:
Oct 31, 2022 22:48:52
Last Metadata Check:
Apr 21, 2024 03:17:36
Last Metadata Change:
Jul 17, 2023 20:06:13
Last Availability Check:
Apr 21, 2024 03:17:39
Last Availability Change:
Apr 20, 2024 13:51:39
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Apr 25, 2024 02:10:18

OverDrive Product Record

images
    • cover:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{82E08E01-5E30-4F65-93A5-9136D21732B0}Img100.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • thumbnail:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{82E08E01-5E30-4F65-93A5-9136D21732B0}Img200.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover150Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/82E/08E/01/{82E08E01-5E30-4F65-93A5-9136D21732B0}Img150.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover300Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/82E/08E/01/{82E08E01-5E30-4F65-93A5-9136D21732B0}Img400.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
formats
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9780062444684
      • name: OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
      • id: audiobook-mp3
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9780062444684
      • name: OverDrive Listen
      • id: audiobook-overdrive
mediaType
Audiobook
primaryCreator
    • role: Author
    • name: Rod Nordland
title
The Lovers
dateAdded
2016-12-01T19:22:00Z
contentDetails
      • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=2396763
      • type: text/html
      • account:
          • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
          • id: 1151
sortTitle
Lovers Afghanistans Romeo and Juliet the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing
crossRefId
2396763
subtitle
Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet, the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing
id
82E08E01-5E30-4F65-93A5-9136D21732B0
starRating
3.6

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain
False
formats
      • duration: 12:11:40
      • fileName: TheLovers_9780062444684_2396763
      • partCount: 14
      • fileSize: 359483100
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9780062444684
      • rights:
            • type: PlayOnPC
            • value: 1
            • type: PlayOnPCCount
            • value: -1
            • type: BurnToCD
            • value: 1
            • type: BurnToCDCount
            • value: -1
            • type: PlayOnPM
            • value: 1
            • type: TransferToSDMI
            • value: 1
            • type: TransferToNonSDMI
            • value: 1
            • type: TransferCount
            • value: -1
            • type: CollaborativePlay
            • value: 0
            • type: PublicPerformance
            • value: 0
            • type: TranscodeToAAC
            • value: 1
      • name: OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
      • isReadAlong: False
      • id: audiobook-mp3
      • onSaleDate: 1/26/2016
      • samples:
            • source: Part 1
            • formatType: audiobook-mp3
            • url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-425/0293-1/2396763-TheLovers.mp3
            • source: From the book
            • formatType: audiobook-overdrive
            • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=82e08e01-5e30-4f65-93a5-9136d21732b0&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
      • duration: 12:27:54
      • fileName: LoversAfghanistansRomeoandJuliettheTrueStoryof-436
      • partCount: 0
      • fileSize: 358994330
      • identifiers:
            • type: ISBN
            • value: 9780062444684
      • name: OverDrive Listen
      • isReadAlong: False
      • id: audiobook-overdrive
      • onSaleDate: 1/26/2016
      • samples:
            • source: Part 1
            • formatType: audiobook-mp3
            • url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-425/0293-1/2396763-TheLovers.mp3
            • source: From the book
            • formatType: audiobook-overdrive
            • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=82e08e01-5e30-4f65-93a5-9136d21732b0&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
creators
      • role: Author
      • fileAs: Nordland, Rod
      • bioText:

        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.

      • name: Rod Nordland
      • role: Narrator
      • fileAs: Ganim, Peter
      • name: Peter Ganim
imprint
HarperAudio
publishDate
2016-01-26T00:00:00-05:00
edition
Unabridged
isOwnedByCollections
True
title
The Lovers
fullDescription

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.

reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        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.”

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        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.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        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.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        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.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        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.)

popularity
116
links
    • self:
        • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/82e08e01-5e30-4f65-93a5-9136d21732b0/metadata
        • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
id
82e08e01-5e30-4f65-93a5-9136d21732b0
starRating
3.6
images
    • cover:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0293-1/{82E08E01-5E30-4F65-93A5-9136D21732B0}Img100.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • thumbnail:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0293-1/{82E08E01-5E30-4F65-93A5-9136D21732B0}Img200.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover150Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0293-1/82E/08E/01/{82E08E01-5E30-4F65-93A5-9136D21732B0}Img150.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
    • cover300Wide:
        • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0293-1/82E/08E/01/{82E08E01-5E30-4F65-93A5-9136D21732B0}Img400.jpg
        • type: image/jpeg
isPublicPerformanceAllowed
False
languages
      • code: en
      • name: English
subjects
      • value: Biography & Autobiography
      • value: History
      • value: Nonfiction
publishDateText
01/26/2016
otherFormatIdentifiers
      • type: ISBN
      • value: 9780062378828
mediaType
Audiobook
shortDescription

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...

sortTitle
Lovers Afghanistans Romeo and Juliet the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing
crossRefId
2396763
subtitle
Afghanistan's Romeo and Juliet, the True Story of How They Defied Their Families and Escaped an Honor Killing
publisher
HarperAudio
bisacCodes
      • code: BIO000000
      • description: Biography & Autobiography / General
      • code: BIO022000
      • description: Biography & Autobiography / Women
      • code: HIS026000
      • description: History / Middle East / General