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The Finest Hotel in Kabul

A People's History of Afghanistan
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The Finest Hotel in Kabul

Auteur(s): Lyse Doucet
Narrateur(s): Lyse Doucet
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À propos de cet audio

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The story of a hotel. The story of a nation.

When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world.

More 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.

Lyse 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.

It 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 story 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.

The 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.

©2025 Lyse Doucet (P)2025 Allen Lane Art et littérature Asie Journalistes, rédacteurs et éditeurs Moderne Politique XXIe siècle

Ce que les critiques en disent

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

“The Finest Hotel in Kabul plays to all Lyse Doucet’s strengths. Clarity, empathy, depth of knowledge and innate grasp of fine detail. Her subject is not just a hotel, but a hotel that tells the story of four decades of Afghanistan's proud and sometimes unbelievably painful history. This is a most readable account of joy, despair and resilience in one of the world’s most fascinating countries.”—Michael Palin, actor, comedian, and bestselling author of Erebus

“Lyse Doucet has turned bricks and mortar into flesh and blood and in so doing lifted this biography of a glittering hotel into a lyrical, devastating, powerful homage to the powerless. In The Finest Hotel in Kabul we follow the fortunes and misfortunes not of those making decisions, but of the cooks, the receptionists, the wedding guests, the servers. It is intimate, aching, tragic and inspiring. When I began this book I had Afghanistan in my head. By the time I finished it was in my heart. Doucet’s descriptions are glorious, her use of language evocative. Her people are fully formed, alive and breathing. This is a thrilling achievement, a beautiful book. I’m off to re-read it. To revisit the finest hotel in Kabul!”—Louise Penny, bestselling author of the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series

“A book brimming with deep insight, courage and conscience. Everyone should read this. Astonishingly beautiful, subtle and simply unforgettable.”—Elif Shafak, author of There Are Rivers in the Sky
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