The Penguin Podcast is back! Listen Now
Shadow City

Shadow City

A Woman Walks Kabul

Summary

'A fabulous piece of writing . . . I recommend it unreservedly' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

'A brilliant book' CHRISTINA LAMB, author of Farewell Kabul

One of the first things I was told when I arrived in Kabul was never to walk...

When journalist Taran Khan arrives in Kabul, she uncovers a place that defies her expectations. Her wanderings with other Kabulis reveal a fragile city in a state of flux: stricken by near-constant war, but flickering with the promise of peace; governed by age-old codes but experimenting with new modes of living.

Her walks take her to the unvisited tombs of the dead, and to the land of the living - like the booksellers, archaeologists, film-makers and entrepreneurs who are remaking this 3,000-year-old city. And as NATO troops begin to withdraw from the country, Khan watches the cycle of transformation begin again.

**Winner of the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award 2021**
**Winner of the Tata Literature Live First Book Award for Non-Fiction 2020**

'Powerfully evocative' Kapka Kassabova

'A wonderful journey' Atiq Rahimi

'Khan illuminates Kabul's life-affirming humanity' TLS

Reviews

  • Shadow City is no conventional travel book. For Khan gives us a Kabul of the imagination: it is the city that was, less the city that is, that fascinates her. Her perambulations represent a form of "bipedal archaeology", an exercise in exhuming the past and probing the lost... It is easy to cast Kabul as a tragic mess of a metropolis, but Khan illuminates its life-affirming humanity
    Oliver Balch, Times Literary Supplement

About the author

Taran Khan

Taran N. Khan is a journalist and writer based in Mumbai. She grew up in Aligarh and was educated in Delhi and London. She has published widely in India and internationally, including in Guernica, Al Jazeera, The Caravan and Himal Southasian and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Jan Michalski Foundation and Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. From 2006 to 2013, Khan spent long periods living and working in Kabul. Her first book, Shadow City, won the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award and the Tata Literature Live First Book Award for Non-Fiction.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more