{"product_id":"the-finest-hotel-in-kabul","title":"The Finest Hotel in Kabul","description":"\u003cp\u003eLyse Doucet\u003cbr\u003eTrade Paperback, 448 pages\u003cbr\u003e9781529151039\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA People’s History of Afghanistan\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe story of a hotel. The story of a nation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMore 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLyse 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hutchinson Heinemann","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41845778153507,"sku":"9781529151039","price":36.0,"currency_code":"SGD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2514\/8624\/files\/DSC_7362_de61fa91-5617-470f-b0c5-b5bd564b2ce1.jpg?v=1767086091","url":"https:\/\/wardahbooks.mom\/products\/the-finest-hotel-in-kabul","provider":"Wardah Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}