Books Set in Asia: Afghanistan

The Opium Prince, by Jasmine Aimaq (2020)

 

This novel takes place in the late 1970 in Afghanistan, shortly before the Russian invasion.  Daniel Abdullah Sajadi was the son of an Afghani war lord and an American mother.  After his mother leaves her husband, and his father is thrown in jail, Daniel was raised by his father’s friend, Sherzia.

 

Daniel left Afghanistan to attend college in the United States, where he met and married Rebecca.  After college, he landed a job with the United States government to head a program called USADE, designed to eradicating the poppy fields.  This job led him back to Afghanistan.

 

While traveling in the countryside one day with his wife, he accidently hit and killed a young nomadic Kochi child.  He turns himself in to the local police authorities where he was let off with a small fine.  The nomadic tribes were not viewed as people by the authorities.  Additionally, at the same time a man named Taj Maleki seemingly intervened to help Daniel negotiate with the young girl’s family.  Only later do we learn that Taj and recently purchased the young girl from her family telling them that she would have a better life with him.

 

Taj was a powerful opium khan, who attempted to blackmail Daniel to prevent Daniel from defoliating his poppy fields.  Daniel remained haunted by the death of the young girl and is an easy target for Taj.  Daniel is torn between wanting to eradicate the poppy fields, yet not be caught in Taj’s trap.  Because Daniel lost his parents as a young boy, he has idolized his father who he believed to be a great man in Afghanistan (he had little memory of his mother).

 

This novel focuses on the opium trade in Afghanistan and how it infiltrates so much of the country’s war economy.  The government wants to destroy the opium trade, and yet the entire world is so wrapped up in its addiction.  The novel emphasizes the power struggles of the opium kings, the government, the religious leaders and the Communists.  When Russia does invade Afghanistan, the whole world shifts for Daniel.

 

This is an amazing novel.

 

Read:  January 17, 2021

 

5 Stars