FAO Naomi

[emmie]

thanks for the recommendation of Khaled Hosseni - A Thousand Splendid Suns. I found some of it hard to stomach, it's depiction of life of these two women so harsh and unforgiving. Will now look out for the Kite Runner.

[chaptazbru]

The Kite Runner is also an excellent book, but of the two I preferred A Thousand Splendid Suns. I wish he'd write another book.

[emmie]

well Naomi seems to have gone amongst the missing. If you are about i have just bought The Kite Runner, and will give you my none too expert opinion when have got through that.

[DTCwordfan]

If you enoy harsh and unforgiving, if you want something really "tough" then may I recommend "Life and Death in Shanghai" by Nien Cheng, technically my predecessor in Shanghai. On the death of her hubbie, she became Managing Director of a major brand and found herself on the wrong side of the Cultural Revolution. It is very harrowing but she comes through it, one of the most powerful accounts of life under Mao and much more punchy and heavyweight than "Wild Swans"

[DTCwordfan]

enjoy

[mibn2cweus]

I believe Naomi is on holiday and she's been provided with a link to this thread so she'll know it's here when she returns.

[emmie]

thank you, i look forward to reading The Kite Runner.
DT i don't usually go for books about harsh and unforgiving treatment of women generally.
But Naomi and Chaptazbru both recommended
A Thousand Splendid Suns, but in parts it's not for the faint hearted.

[jomifl]

Both good..

[emmie]

DT, might look out for that, I did read Wild Swans, that took a while as well.

[naomi24]

Hi Em, sorry for the delay. I'm pleased you enjoyed the book (although perhaps 'enjoyed' isn't quite the right word). The Kite Runner is a good book too - but it comes nowhere near A Thousand Splendid Suns - in my opinion.

Thanks Mibs. It's appreciated. :o)

[emmie]

naomi, raced through and finished The Kite Runner, excellent, just like a Thousand Splendid Suns, so thanks for the recommendations, let's hope he writes more books. They are hard to take in parts i grant you, but very well written, and i will read both again one day.

[naomi24]

I hope he writes more too.

This is interesting, Em.

http://www.khaledhosseinifoundation.org/

//The Foundation supports projects which provide shelter to refugee families and economic and education opportunities and healthcare for women and children. In addition, the Foundation awards scholarships to women pursuing higher education in Afghanistan.//

I like him. :o)

[DTCwordfan]

Wild Swans had, how shall I put it, a bit of the Attenborough treatment to the film Ghandi, if you get my gist. Life and Death is up a magnitude and is unbelievable that man/woman can do this to a fellow human, more psychological than physical.

As I mentioned, I worked out there. One of my team, well his father had been Surgeon General of Shanghai, his mother also a doctor. They were deemed bourgeoise and executed; their two boys dispatched to work the "night soil" in deepest Sichuan (Szechuan alt sp). If you do not know what night soil is then a google.

That wasn't the real torture though; they were returned to Shanghai in late 69 to work in a steel works, pulling rail carts of steel bars around the yard. His bro died in an open zinc bath, he was left with a permanently arched back. He was one of the few to talk openly about the Cultural Revolution - I had to have a quiet word with him to separate his political demos (and I said understandable) away from the office as he could be putting his colleagues at risk.....horrendous though as you probe away at this awful story of Chinese Human Rights, sadly still ongoing as you may have seen in the press or on TV recently

[emmie]

naomi, i like him too. He writes with his heart.

[emmie]

DT, sounds pretty much what the working class went through here up until fairly recently. Read the books mentioned if you get the time, does make you think that Afghanistan is a blighted land, and that it's people have been sorely put upon