{"id":636067,"date":"2026-06-13T04:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T04:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/636067\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T04:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T04:26:13","slug":"we-cant-give-up-on-afghans-lyse-doucet-on-the-remarkable-peoples-history-that-won-her-the-womens-prize-womens-prize-for-nonfiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/636067\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We can\u2019t give up on Afghans\u2019: Lyse Doucet on the remarkable \u2018people\u2019s history\u2019 that won her the Women\u2019s prize | Women’s prize for nonfiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lyse Doucet first checked into Kabul\u2019s Intercontinental Hotel on Christmas Day 1988, as Soviet troops were withdrawing from Afghanistan<\/a> at the end of a decade-long occupation. She expected to stay briefly. Instead, she remained for almost a year, and the hotel became her first Afghan home.<\/p>\n

More than three decades later, it became the subject of her first book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul<\/a>, which has now won the Women\u2019s prize for nonfiction<\/a>. But while the prize recognises a remarkable work of reportage and history, the BBC\u2019s chief international correspondent is more interested in what it might do for the country that inspired it.<\/p>\n

Photograph: PR<\/p>\n

\u201cAfghanistan has largely slipped from the headlines,\u201d Doucet says. \u201cPerhaps this win will bring some attention to the country. None of us should be ready to accept a situation in which we live in a world where there is a country where girls cannot be educated after they\u2019re 16, where women cannot go to university, where women are barred from so many jobs. This is something we should all be angry about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afghanistan was not ever thus. After nearly four decades reporting from the country, primarily for the BBC, Doucet, 67, has watched it pass through almost every political experiment of the modern era: Soviet-backed communism, civil war, Taliban<\/a> rule, western-backed democracy, and now the Taliban again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was conscious that Afghanistan has a very difficult and violent history,\u201d Doucet says. \u201cI needed to find something that would draw people in rather than push them away. I didn\u2019t want people to close the book and say: \u2018It\u2019s too dark. It\u2019s too bloody.\u2019 So a hotel was a device to tell the story in a way people could recognise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Intercontinental Hotel \u2013 known simply as the Intercon \u2013 offered the perfect lens to tell a people\u2019s history of the country. Built by the British in the late 1960s, it was once a symbol of a different Afghanistan. In the 1960s and 70s, Kabul was known as the \u201cParis of the east\u201d, a vibrant hub of fashion, jazz, miniskirts and apres-ski resorts. Afghan pop star Ahmad Zahir \u2013 known as the \u201cElvis of Afghanistan\u201d \u2013 performed at the hotel; Gloria Gaynor was a guest. Foreign travellers passed through on the hippy trail.<\/p>\n

As the following decades saw immense political upheaval, the Intercon remained open. \u201cPolitics, like hotel guests, checked in and out,\u201d Doucet writes. \u201cAs Afghanistan lurched through decades of trial and terror, laced with bright but brief beginnings, the Intercon was an unbreakable constant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Politics, like hotel guests, checked in and out\u2019 \u2026 Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul. Photograph: Theodore Liasi\/Alamy<\/p>\n

The hotel staff who remained through those changes are at the heart of her story: Hazrat, the housekeeper who worked there from the hotel\u2019s opening; Abida, the hotel\u2019s first female chef; Amanullah, the engineer; and Malalai, one of the first female waiters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to pay tribute to the Afghans who helped me and spoke to me for the book, because in Afghanistan even sharing stories can have risks,\u201d Doucet says.<\/p>\n

Doucet began her career in journalism as a freelance reporter in west Africa for the BBC. She went on to cover conflicts across the world, eventually becoming chief international correspondent in 2012. Her book opens with the fall of Kabul in August 2021, and the disastrous American withdrawal, which remains one of the defining moments of Doucet\u2019s career. She recalls watching the evacuation from the airport: military transport planes, helicopters and Afghans carrying only one bag as they fled.<\/p>\n

double quotation markFive years in and it is getting worse. It is a stain on our world<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was this fear at the end. People kept talking about Vietnam \u2013 that image of the people clinging to the last helicopter rising from the roof of the embassy in Saigon,\u201d she says. \u201cIn fact, it was a hundred times worse \u2013 Afghans racing to the airport, clinging to the underbelly of planes. It\u2019s been a really traumatising experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since returning to power, the Taliban have systematically erased women from public life through a series of draconian measures. Girls have been entirely banned from secondary education and university, women have been forced out of many workplaces and banned from public spaces, and strict adherence to the burqa is required. Last month, an official decree was passed effectively legally recognising<\/a> child marriage. And just this week, a rare protest<\/a> that erupted in the western city of Herat against arrests of women accused of violating hijab rules ended with two people killed, including a child.<\/p>\n

A member of Taliban security stands guard outside a mosque in Shahrak-e-Almahdi, Jebrail district of Herat province yesterday. Photograph: Mohsen Karimi\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cFive years in and it is getting worse. It is a stain on our world,\u201d Doucet says. \u201cBut the courage of Afghan women is extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doucet is also frustrated that the barriers facing Afghan women go beyond those inside the country. \u201cThere are Afghan women getting scholarships, but there are no visas now to allow Afghan women to come and study in Britain and in many other places,\u201d she says. \u201cThey are meeting obstacles everywhere. We live very privileged lives here, and it\u2019s not our privilege to give up on Afghans.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who were somebody in Afghanistan \u2013 activists, world-class journalists \u2013 find themselves having to start again from scratch,\u201d she continues. \u201cIt\u2019s something none of us would want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doucet believes, though, that the world must be careful not to dismiss the achievements of the post-2001 period. \u201cPeople often say: what did 20 years of international engagement achieve? Was it all for nothing? I always say it wasn\u2019t for nothing. There were many mistakes, but that period helped create the most educated, the most connected generation in Afghan history,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you see girls saying: \u2018I want to get online, can you help me get a scholarship, can you help me get some kind of education?\u2019 \u2026 They know their rights now.\u201d<\/p>\n

This month, for the first time, the EU is preparing talks with Taliban representatives in Brussels<\/a>, despite concerns that engagement risks legitimising a bloody and despotic regime. Doucet is cautious about prescribing a solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a BBC journalist,\u201d Doucet says. \u201cMy job is to explain, not advocate. But [some] mediators would say that it\u2019s better to negotiate than isolate. The only change is going to have to come from within the Taliban.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, there is little sign of change in the country. But Doucet is reluctant to surrender the quality Afghans themselves prize above all others.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfghans always used to say: the last to die is hope,\u201d she says. \u201cAfghanistan has possibly lived through every political system the world has tried \u2013 the thread through Afghan history is that nothing lasts for ever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lyse Doucet first checked into Kabul\u2019s Intercontinental Hotel on Christmas Day 1988, as Soviet troops were withdrawing from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-636067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}