Conville & Walsh
literary agency
The Storyteller’s Daughter
- Author: Saira Shah
- Category: Non-fiction
- Publisher: Penguin(UK)/Random House(US)
- Pub date: 1 September 2003
- Length: 254 pages
About The Storyteller’s Daughter
This is an extraordinary book by a remarkable young woman… There is not likely to be a better one about Afghanistan’
— Doris Lessing
‘Saira Shah takes us on an extraordinary journey from an English childhood laced with Afghan myths… to the terrors and complexities of present-day Afghanistan. She embraces an amazing breadth of history, family and plain old East/West collision. At the end you are left with the truest sense of this magical country’
— Jon Snow
Born in Britain to an Afghan family who trace their ancestry back 2,000 years, Saira Shah had always been told of her origins in a fairytale land of orchards and gardens, where even the water had magical qualities. The country was Afghanistan, the storyteller her father.
At the age of 21 Saira set out to discover the truth about her family’s homeland. Instead of finding a paradise she was plunged into a country at war. It was the beginning of a journey spanning more than 15 years.
Whether extricating herself from an arranged marriage, walking through minefields with the Mujahidin, or slipping clandestinely into the Taliban’s Kabul, Saira learned the bitter limits of the stories she loved. But in the process she discovered the reality of a country more complex and challenging than anything she could have imagined.
About the Author
Saira Shah is an award-winning journalist, war reporter and documentary film-maker whose work includes the films ‘Beneath the Veil’ and ‘Unholy War’. Her most recent documentary, ‘Death in Gaza’, is a tribute to James Miller, her long-term cameraman and collaborator who was shot dead without explanation by Israeli forces in 2003 while filming with Saira.