Winner of the 2026 Women's Non-Fiction Prize, a bestseller according to the newspaper Sunday *Times,*
In 1969, the luxurious InterContinental Kabul opened its doors: a sparkling white building, perched high on a hill, reflecting Afghanistan's hopes of becoming a modern nation connected to the world.Lise Doucet first stayed at the InterContinental on Christmas Eve 1988. Over the decades that followed, it witnessed Soviet evacuation, a devastating civil war, an American invasion, and the rise, fall and then rise of the Taliban, all from within its crumbling walls. The InterContinental never closed its doors.Now, the author weaves together the experiences of the Afghans who kept the hotel going, presenting a rich and immersive history of their country. It's the story of Hazrat, a septuagenarian housekeeper who still clings to his InterContinental training from the hotel's glory days in the 1970s — the era of haute cuisine and haute couture, when Afghanistan was a kingdom and Kabul was the "Paris of Central Asia." The story of Abida, who became the first female chef after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. And the story of Malali and Sadiq, two young men in their twenties who took advantage of...Every opportunity they had during two decades of fragile democracy - to see the Taliban return in force in 2021.
Through these intimate images of Afghan life, the hotel's story becomes the story of a people.
