An American Bride in Kabul

I have been wanting to read Phyllis Chesler's memoir An American Bride in Kabul (#388) ever since I first saw it listed on the GoodReads website.  Before you even open the book, the disturbing cover photo sets the tone for her story.  Ms. Chesler has chosen to split her memoir into two equally compelling halves.

The first section deals with her marriage as a twenty year old American college student to a handsome, charming and Westernized son of a wealthy Afghan family.  When she and her new husband travel to Kabul in 1961, she is under the impression that they will meet his family, tour the country and return to America so she can finish her studies. Her first shock comes when his family comes to meet them at the airport: eight Mercedes-Benz' worth.  Abdul-Kareem had not prepared her for his father's multiple wives or the rest of the extended family.  The second shock follows immediately when the Afghan authorities at the airport demand she turn over her US passport.  She never sees it again.  Instead, she is driven to the family compound where her father-in-law's word is law and she is placed in closely guarded purdah and largely ignored by her formerly doting husband.  She tells the tale of what happened to her, how her appeals to the American Embassy were ignored, and what finally made her plan to escape from Afghanistan.  It's not a pretty picture.

The second half of Ms. Chesler's memoir is even more interesting, I think.  After she leaves Afghanistan, she is forced to begin over again and support herself.  One of the first things she does with the aid of her parents is to set about freeing herself from her marriage.  She earns a doctorate in psychotherapy, but fueled by her experiences in Afghanistan, she becomes an ardent feminist, writer and speaker on the world stage against gender apartheid and for women's rights.  She re-connects with her Judaic roots along the way. Despite it all, she has managed to maintain a relationship with her husband, Abdul-Kareem, and his second family after they are obliged to leave Afghanistan themselves.

She acknowledges that it has taken her more than fifty years to write about her own experiences there, and her brush with death.  Some of what she admits to in this memoir is still potentially dangerous to herself and her Afghani connections.  But if her mission is to open Western eyes to the systematic oppression of women in the East, and even here in the West, she has succeeded admirably.