Asne Seierstad’s depiction of the life of an Afghani family is shocking and provocative. The Bookseller of Kabul is one of the first most intimate stories that recounts real life events of one of the nation’s more prestigious families. While they are not rich by the standards of our culture, they have been able to provide a home and shelter for a large family, something that is not always possible in a country embedded in poverty. After years of wars the cities and towns lay in rubbish; sidewalks mutilated, buildings that have had to be closed down from bombing. More shocking that the destruction of their communities is the calloused way in which the men treat women. In a place that practically defines the concept of patriarchy, there is no escape for the women who must spend all of their life under the ruling of an unfair dictation.

For her to really understand the culture of this family, Seierstad requested to reside with them for four months and was well received. David Spurr concludes in his book The Rhetoric of Empire, that in journalistic writing, the ability to maintain oneself on the fringe of the action is important to correctly depicting what happens. “The gaze is also the active instrument of construction, order, and arrangement” (15). This allows for the customs of the non-Westernized peoples to appear strange and uncultured, rather than simply different. He claims that by viewing the world through a journalistic pair of eyes, that person sets themselves in a position of authority and power. While Seierstad did receive unfair treatment in regards to the other women of the family, when she put on the burka she was simply another anonymous woman. In this sense she deviates from Spurr’s argument because she is not merely an observer, she is affected as well.