The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan is about an institution tasked with the job of housing strangers – Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel. Through this hotel, which sits high on a hill, and the people within it, seasoned BBC journalist and current foreign affairs editor, Lyse Doucet, attempts tell an immersive history of the sweeping changes that have faced Afghanistan since it opened in 1969.
The book has won the third ever Women’s prize in non-fiction. As an scholar of the region, I can tell you that the hotel is a useful lens through which to tell the recent history of Afghanistan.
