Shadow City

Offers a unique on-the-ground view of the city...a refreshing counterpoint to the macho foreign correspondent genre... Khan’s interviews during her walks powerfully evoke the fluctuating mood in a city that is trying to heal itself

Amelia Gentleman, Guardian

These stories conjure a magic in the labyrinthine streets and reveal a fragile city in a state of flux, shape-shifting and flickering with the promise of peace

Sophie Lam, i

Any reader of this book is sure to discover a Kabul so unlike what the media portrays. Taran’s love of her city comes across in her enchanting evocation of a city where so many tragedies echo from across Kabul’s decades of war. On her last walk, she writes: “to leave Kabul was to take it with you.” This is what happened when I finished reading this book, I took Kabul with me

Raja Shehadeh, author of Palestinian Walks

On the surface, Kabul is a city caught "between the hope of peace and the habit of violence." The deeper reality, though, is even more complex and layered: like Kabul's actual lanes, those that map its character "twist and vanish . . . like well-kept secrets." It is an elusive, illusive place - bood, nabood, now you see it, now you don't. Taran Khan's achievement is to have caught it in an affecting and beautifully observed portrait, a word-map that will endure

Tim Mackintosh-Smith

By excavating Afghanistan's forgotten past, Khan rescues its future, too. Her lyrical prose brings to life the most daring truth a writer can offer: that these tragedies were not preordained, and another Afghanistan is possible

Anand Gopal, author of No Good Men Among the Living

A lyrical discovery... As a Muslim woman from India, Khan is able to present a unique social and historical perspective

Edward Girardet, Global Geneva

Taran Khan invites and leads us into a wonderful journey through the streets of Kabul, its history and culture. Step by step with her, we breathe in the city’s air of mysticism and mystery, walk through gardens full of myths and secrets, and we caress the wounds and scars of war on the skin of the city and cross the bridge that is built over the river between Indo-Greek civilization

Atiq Rahimi

Shadow City moved me to tears... In the service of Kabul and Afghanistan, a region of the world about which we imagine we know much more than we actually do, no book has done a more honest and heart-warming job in recent years... Thrilling

Supriya Nair, Mumbai Mirror

Traces the lost glory of the city and narrates contemporary miseries. A moving memoir...and a subtle dive into history

Ashutosh Bhardwaj, Financial Express