Crossing the River Kabul: An Afghan Family Odyssey by Kevin McLean

Baryalai Popal sees his Western-educated professors at Kabul college changed through communists. He witnesses his classmates “disappearing.” The communist takeover uproots Popal from his kinfolk and residential. hence starts Crossing the River Kabul, the real tale of Popal’s break out from Afghanistan and his eventual return.

Kevin McLean weaves jointly Popal’s tales during this memoir, that is additionally a desirable examine Afghanistan from the perspective of Popal and generations of his politically influential relations. From the exile of Popal’s grandfather from Kandahar in 1898 to his father’s tutoring of 2 boys who as adults may play vital roles in Afghanistan—one as king and the opposite as president—to his uncle’s presence on the fateful assembly that resulted in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Popal’s family historical past is intertwined with that of his nation.

Popal fled his nation following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1980. After being imprisoned as a secret agent in Pakistan, he controlled to make his strategy to Germany as a refugee and to the USA as an immigrant. 20 years later he back to Afghanistan after 9-11 to reclaim his homes, basically to discover one managed through drug lords and the opposite by means of the main robust warlord in Afghanistan.

Popal’s memoir is an intimate, usually funny portrait of the vanished Afghanistan of his early life. it's also the tale of a father whose maximum hope is to work out his son stick with in his footsteps, and a son who consistently rebels opposed to his father's needs. Crossing the River Kabul is a narrative of selection and future, worry and braveness, and loss and redemption.