Lyse Doucet

The Finest Hotel in Kabul tells the story of Afghanistan through the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul, a sexy splash of glamour in a poor, mostly illiterate country when it opened in 1969. Afghanistan was a kingdom then and in the years since, the hotel and its staff have seen coups, a Soviet invasion, a Marxist dictatorship, civil war, the Taliban, western invasion and occupation, the Taliban again. Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent, does a terrific, novelistic job of telling the story of the people who’ve worked there and what this tumultuous change has meant for them.

An incredible book – vivid and beautifully written, it captures the soul of Afghanistan through an age of hopes and heartbreak, as well as one of constant change. A tender, wise and quietly devastating book.

PETER FRANKOPAN, author of The Silk Roads

An ingenious method of storytelling, and what a story the Inter-Continental Kabul has to tell. Lyse Doucet writes with verve and insight, and a clear warmth of feeling for Afghanistan and its people.

The Finest Hotel in Kabul plays to all Lyse Doucet’s strengths. Clarity, empathy, depth of knowledge and innate grasp of fine detail. Her subject is not just a hotel, but a hotel that tells the story of four decades of Afghanistan’s proud and sometimes unbelievably painful history. This is a most readable account of joy, despair and resilience in one of the world’s most fascinating countries.

As with the voice, so with the book: distinct, original, humane, powerful and utterly compelling.

PHILIPPE SANDS, author of East West Street

A book brimming with deep insight, courage and conscience. Everyone should read this. Astonishingly beautiful, subtle and simply unforgettable.

ELIF SHAFAK, author of There Are Rivers in the Sky

A story of a country and a people, told with knowledge, insight and tenderness. I’ve been waiting for a Lyse Doucet book for a long time and what she has produced here is testament to her humanity as well as her journalistic eye.

Charming and often surprising . . . What sustains the book is Doucet’s focus on the ordinary Afghans who keep the place going despite the shelling, rockets, suicide bombs and occasional massacres of both staff and guests . . . the hotel remains a monument to Afghan resilience and to the bravery and persistence of its staff. In Doucet, and her witty, observant and sometimes heartbreaking book, they have found a worthy chronicler.

The Finest Hotel in Kabul offers an unflinching and intimate portrait of contemporary Afghanistan, from the hopeful days following the fall of the Taliban’s first regime to the chilling return of fear under their second rule. At the heart of the story is a woman who prepares food with her hands, yet in doing so, is quietly shaping the future. As the Taliban return, laughter fades, and like thousands of other women, she is pushed to the margins. This book is a powerful historical account of lives lived in the crossfire of conflict and power, a story too rarely heard, and too often overlooked. Broken promises of peace for a people who have lived, generation after generation, in the shadow of war and politics.

What a beautiful book – inventive, compassionate, witty, brilliantly structured. An extraordinary introduction to Afghanistan, and a tribute to one of the finest correspondents of our age.

RORY STEWART, author of Politics On the Edge and The Places in Between

Deftly drawn. The book does many things. It offers a clever and informed social history of Kabul over more than five decades; a useful account of the politics of Afghanistan throughout the same period; a glimpse of how foreign correspondents once worked in the days before WiFi and social media; and an insight into the lives of ordinary people who lived with astonishing resilience through almost a dozen different regimes, half a dozen wars, repeated coups and a great deal of hardship. Unlike most books written by foreigners about Afghanistan, Doucet’s foregrounds Afghan voices. . . But there are answers to some of the bigger questions in the carefully observed details.

Lyse Doucet is a consummate storyteller and first class journalist . . . A powerful and evocative account of a people who have borne tumultuous waves of progress and repression, from mini skirts and white weddings to burqas and gross Taliban denials of freedoms. A brilliant and important reminder of the cost of wars.

A deeply humane story of Afghanistan revealing the impact of decades of upheaval on everyday lives.

JUDGES OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

Drawing on her more than 30 years of reporting from that country, it is a captivating debut in which Doucet gives herself only a tiny walk-on part. Instead, she centres the lives and recollections of those who have worked at Kabul’s renowned Inter-Continental Hotel across five decades . . . The Finest Hotel in Kabul concludes in a spirit of enduring optimism, or at least with the inshallah tenacity that seems to characterise the Afghan people.

Fabulous . . . A cross between the novel A Gentleman in Moscow and Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. Doucet has taken the Hotel Inter-Continental on the hill overlooking Afghanistan’s capital and written about the country’s hopes, travails, invasions and civil wars using the people who came through the increasingly battered doors.

It is the day-to-day life of the hotel, its guests and staff, brilliantly captured by Doucet, that most vividly reflects the country's history . . . It is difficult to think of anyone as well qualified to write a book about the hotel as Doucet. It is not just that she has been a regular visitor there since 1988. It's also that she has an extraordinary sensitivity to the experiences of individuals, no matter their station . . . Rich in detail, moving and never wearisome.

Full of warmth, wit, and a lovely eye for the human stories that make the hotel not just a monument to tragedy, but also love and resilience . . . This is the book about an Afghanistan I never knew that I always wanted to read . . . What Doucet achieves is both powerful and charming at the same time. The Finest Hotel in Kabul is a meditation on memory, resilience, and the strange intimacy of public spaces. In an age when most hotels blur into the anonymous comfort of global chains, the Inter-Con reminds us that some buildings are so much more.

This is a remarkable book about a remarkable institution in a remarkable country by a remarkable journalist. It should be read, and reread, by every “statesman”, politician, diplomat and op-ed writer who has pontificated about Afghanistan since that country came back on to the radar screens of the West in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. And for those who have not been so presumptuous as to suppose that they knew what was best for Afghanistan, Lyse Doucet’s new book will be an enjoyable if at times deeply upsetting read, a reminder that, however much we human beings study history, we seldom learn from it.

It should come as no surprise that the BBC’s chief international correspondent, Lyse Doucet – a familiar face and voice from years of reporting from conflict zones around the world – is a gifted storyteller. But even by her high standards, this account of the tribulations that have beset Afghanistan in recent decades, as seen through the eyes of ordinary Afghans working at Kabul’s premier international hotel, the Inter-Continental, has a wonderfully human touch . . . A masterly evocation of a supremely complex decade in Afghanistan’s history.

Doucet is a must-watch, always alive to the personal stories and tribulations of the people she encounters. But is she a must-read? On the evidence of The Finest Hotel in Kabul . . . the answer must be a resounding yes . . . Doucet is a consummate storyteller who can recognise a great yarn when she sees one . . . The real strength of this book is her ability to get under the skin of a country through its people. Perhaps thanks to her many years of reporting in Afghanistan, she embraces ordinary men and women and allows them to do the talking . . . Haunting, hopeful and occasionally harrowing, The Finest Hotel in Kabul is much more than a history. It is a love letter to Afghanistan and its people.

Novelistic . . . A human narrator who conveys the suffering and resilience of the hotel's staff.

The history of [Doucet's] “first Afghan home” – Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel – through the eyes of its staff, men and women, young and old, whose personal tales encapsulate those of a whole nation . . . Rich in evocative detail after countless hours of interviews, including with people who worked there from the start.

The Finest Hotel in Kabul gives a unique, human insight into Afghanistan’s history, weaving together the stories and lives of those who worked at one particular hotel during the country’s turbulent history . . . Lyse Doucet does well to present individual tales of resilience, ambition, hope and grief, giving a deeper account of the Afghanistan we mostly know from headlines. This is well worth a read for a compassionate understanding of modern Afghanistan and its people, through the lens of the daily interactions at a hotel still standing today.

The BBC's Lyse Doucet tells the story of Afghanistan’s constant upheavals – from kingdom to Soviet invasion to the rule of the Taliban (twice) via civil war and US invasion – through the microcosm of the guests and staff of a Kabul hotel. Fascinating.

What we know of Afghanistan tends mostly to be wrenched from the news headlines; here, [Doucet] adds context, depth and nuance.

The Finest Hotel in Kabul weaves together their stories – personal ambitions, tragedies, loves, triumphs, losses – against a backdrop of near-constant political turmoil. There is a dreamlike quality to [Doucet’s] writing, to the leitmotifs of these emphatically un-dreamlike events. The sense of intimacy Doucet creates, made possible only by the trust built up over years with her subjects, turns a dizzying string of key dates and turning points into something more akin to immersive theatre. It's epic, told on an intricately domestic scale, through tablecloths and faulty telephone lines and the most luxurious of towels . . .[Doucet’s] longstanding love of the hotel over more than 40 years shines through in the meticulous, almost painfully vivid descriptions . . . If there is an underlying theme amid the tangled strands of memory, politics and power dynamics, it is one of resilience.

Doucet is a humane narrator with an eye for detail; she conveys her characters' suffering and resilience . . . It is fascinating to read how the InterCon has been buffeted by history. Many of the people Ms Doucet describes no longer work there. Yet the message of her book is extremely salutary. Regimes can outstay their welcome, but not forever.

Lyse Doucet first arrived in Afghanistan in 1988 just as the Soviet Union was withdrawing and has returned to the country many times since. As a BBC correspondent, she has excelled in bringing the story of Afghanistan alive through individuals. Here she uses the personal stories of the staff at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul as a testament to the resilience of a country and a people through invasions, regime changes, bombings and warfare.

A remarkable book . . . It tells the story of the Inter-Continental, Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel, which has endured civil wars and the fall and rise of the Taliban. It is a moving history of a country that is often neglected.

Nuanced and affectionate . . . Through the personal stories of the hotel’s staff and its clientele, she tells of Afghanistan’s tortuous journey from monarchy to Soviet occupation, civil war to the Taliban, then back to the Taliban via a 20-year interlude of state-building backed by the west. The heart of the book is in the lives of ordinary people, as extraordinary world events play out . . . This is a beautifully written and observed book by one of the finest journalists of her generation.

Novelistic in approach and epic in scope.

An empathetic chronicle of Afghanistan’s capital from the point of view of the Intercontinental – from its ballrooms and bikinis era in the 1970s to its function as a fortress staving off Taliban suicide bombers during the American occupation. It is, above all, a tribute to a people who, buffeted by invasion and civil war, remain cheerfully exuberant and fiercely resilient.

A poignant and, at times, tragic history of ordinary lives set against the background of royal rule, coups d’état, foreign invasions and two Taliban regimes

KAVITA PURI,  BOOKS OF THE YEAR. BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE

With empathy, if not affection, Doucet paints vivid portraits of the people who sustained the hotel during these years of change and turmoil . . . Through these stories, Doucet successfully portrays the fears, concerns, and hopes of both staff and guests, and her story is personal and poignant. On almost every page, we encounter themes of resilience, courage, and self-sacrifice. . . The Finest Hotel in Kabul is a compelling portrait of a building, its people, and the nation that it reflects: a story of endurance, bravery, and humanity set against decades of war and upheaval.

A biography of a hotel and a country, telling the story of Afghanistan through the prism of the Inter-Continental Kabul — where Doucet first stayed in 1988 — and its staff. The Inter-Continental has seen communism, Islamism and failed western interventionism; it has hosted both fashion shows and Osama bin Laden. “History — good, bad and bloody — was made within its walls,” Doucet writes. She combines sharp observation with deep affection for this much-afflicted nation.

A People’s History of Afghanistan

When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world. 
 
More than fifty years on, the Inter-Continental is still standing. It has endured Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a grievous civil war, a US invasion and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. History lives within its scarred windows and walls. 
 
Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, has been checking into the Inter-Continental since 1988. And here, she uses its story to craft a richly immersive history of modern Afghanistan. 
 
It is the story of Hazrat, the septuagenarian housekeeper who still holds fast to his Inter-Continental training from the hotel’s 1970s glory days – an era of haute cuisine and high fashion, when Afghanistan was a kingdom and Kabul was the ‘Paris of Asia’. It is the story of Abida, who became the first female chef to cook in the Inter-Con’s famous kitchen after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. And it is the lives of Malalai and Sadeq, the twenty-something staff who seized every opportunity offered by two decades of fragile democracy – only to witness the Taliban roaring back in 2021. 
 
The result is a remarkably vivid history of how Afghans have survived a half century of destruction and disruption. It is the story of a hotel but also the story of a people.

Lyse Doucet

Praise for The Finest Hotel in Kabul

The Finest Hotel in Kabul tells the story of Afghanistan through the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul, a sexy splash of glamour in a poor, mostly illiterate country when it opened in 1969. Afghanistan was a king ...

An incredible book – vivid and beautifully written, it captures the soul of Afghanistan through an age of hopes and heartbreak, as well as one of constant change. A tender, wise and quietly devastating book.

An ingenious method of storytelling, and what a story the Inter-Continental Kabul has to tell. Lyse Doucet writes with verve and insight, and a clear warmth of feeling for Afghanistan and its people.

The Finest Hotel in Kabul tells the story of Afghanistan through the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul, a sexy splash of glamour in a poor, mostly illiterate country when it opened in 1969. Afghanistan was a king ...

An incredible book – vivid and beautifully written, it captures the soul of Afghanistan through an age of hopes and heartbreak, as well as one of constant change. A tender, wise and quietly devastating book.

An ingenious method of storytelling, and what a story the Inter-Continental Kabul has to tell. Lyse Doucet writes with verve and insight, and a clear warmth of feeling for Afghanistan and its people.

The Finest Hotel in Kabul tells the story of Afghanistan through the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul, a sexy splash of glamour in a poor, mostly illiterate country when it opened in 1969. Afghanistan was a king ...

An incredible book – vivid and beautifully written, it captures the soul of Afghanistan through an age of hopes and heartbreak, as well as one of constant change. A tender, wise and quietly devastating book.

An ingenious method of storytelling, and what a story the Inter-Continental Kabul has to tell. Lyse Doucet writes with verve and insight, and a clear warmth of feeling for Afghanistan and its people.

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