The Interpreter

Mary from USA.

So manly

I have read this book through.  I am a girl, and this book is so manly, I fell in love, but I still don’t know what about.  There are so many things that only touch your heart.  Is it the interpreter, Shabir, the main hero in the book, or is it the writer, himself, Shah Wali Fazli?  Now, as a girl, I want to love them both, because they are both men and they have won my heart.  Man, this book can make you do everything, laugh, cry, go sad, go mad, go to Helmand and experience the war yourself, be an interpreter, be a soldier, be a local Helmandi, even be a Taliban.  This book has everything that a girl would love to find in a book.  Can you believe Shabir is a Karate master, before he comes to Helmand to become an interpreter?  Imagining his fighting with the Taliban, whom he beats breaking his nose and tooth, makes, or I should say, gives the story quite a different taste.  Shabir has many interpreter friends.  One of his friends, Babur, gets beheaded by the Taliban commander, whose name is Mullah Aslam, and he is known as Mullah Dozakhi or A Man from Hell.  Hell, I don’t know now to love Mullah Dozakhi or hate him, he is so cruel, so everywhere and the worst of all that he has got a personal feud with Shabir, from when Shabir beats his man in his Karate club, in Kabul.  Ok, I don’t want to give away so much of this brilliant novel.  I just say that this book is a man and I am a girl – and I love it.  You will love it too, if you are a man or a woman. 

A definite five star read.