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    The Taliban Cricket Club: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Taliban Cricket Club: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Taliban Cricket Club: A Novel
    Ebook417 pages5 hours

    The Taliban Cricket Club: A Novel

    By Timeri Murari

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    A harrowing yet tender novel—Bend It Like Beckham in a burka—The Taliban Cricket Club is a moving and unforgettable tale of one woman’s courage and guile in the face of terror and tyranny

    Rukhsana is a spirited young journalist working for The Kabul Times in Afghanistan. She takes care of her ill, widowed mother and her younger brother Jahan. But with the arrival of a summons for Rukhsana to appear before the infamous Ministry to Promote Virtue and Punish Vice, their quiet and tenuous way of life is shattered. The minister, Zorak Wahidi, has two things in mind: to threaten anti-Taliban news reporters and to announce the Taliban’s intention to hold a cricket tournament. The winner will represent Afghanistan in the International Cricket Club in London, finally proving to the world that Afghanistan deserves to be treated with the respect granted other nations.

    Rukhsana knows this is a deeply ludicrous idea—the Taliban will fail to embrace a game rooted in civility, fairness and equality. There is no tolerance for violence or cheating. And no one in Afghanistan even plays cricket. Except Rukhsana.

    This could be a way to get her cousins and her brother out of Afganistan for good, but before practice can even begin, Wahidi demands her hand in marriage. The union would be her death sentence, stripping away what few freedoms she has left under Taliban rule and forcing her away from her family and under Wahidi’s complete control. Her family rallies around her, willing to do anything to protect her, even if it means their own imprisonment, or worse.

    But Rukhsana realizes that Wahidi may have given her a way out, too. With the help of her loyal, beloved cousins, she forms her own cricket team and sets about teaching them how to win them their freedom—with a bat and a ball.

    In this soaring novel of resilience, Rukhsana’s strength, hope and tenderness reveal how no tyranny is ever absolute in the face of love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 15, 2012
    ISBN9781443410663
    Unavailable
    The Taliban Cricket Club: A Novel
    Author

    Timeri Murari

    TIMERI N. MURARI is an award-winning writer, filmmaker and playwright who began his career as a journalist on the Ontario newspaper The Kingston Whig-Standard. He now writes for The Guardian (UK), The Sunday Times (UK) and other international magazines and newspapers. He has published both fiction and non-fiction and his bestselling novel Taj was translated into nineteen languages. In 2006 he published a memoir, My Temporary Son, exploring the difficulties of adopting a desperately ill orphan. Timeri lives with his wife in his ancestral home of Chennai, India.

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    Reviews for The Taliban Cricket Club

    4/5

    4 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Set in Afghanistan during the years (1996-2001) that the Taliban was in complete control, this novel rivals the scariest dystopian fiction. But its protagonist -- a young, well-educated, ambitious and athletic woman-- gives it heart and soul. Beyond the horror of what the Taliban did to women is the story of likable, real-seeming people who just want to live their lives in freedom and in peace. Rukshana is a journalist who, despite being caged and covered-- like all Afghani women at the time-- manages to become the coach and trainer of a cricket team consisting of her brother and male cousins. All of the characters rang true to me, and I really loved this book.
    • 3/5
      Rukhsana spent too much time in her own head to get four stars but it was a good story.
    • 4/5
      I really wanted to like this book from the moment I ordered it , I loved the idea of a Taliban Cricket Club which involved a woman and …. I wasn’t disappointed.It’s not another Kite Runner, that story has been told, but nor was it the Afghan Chick - Lit that I had read it was. Instead it was an emotional story of family bonds, courage and loyalty and the brutality of living life under the Taliban. There is nothing brutal about the book however, it is a gentle telling of this story, not to be taken tooo seriously , it is a work of fiction after all.