Åsne Seierstad has received numerous awards for her journalism and has reported from war-torn regions such as Chechnya, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. She published The Bookseller of Kabul in 2003 and although it quickly climbed to the top of the Irish bestseller charts, it wasn't until Richard and Judy picked it for their bookclub did it acquire international acclaim. Her recent book; One Hundred and One Days documents her experiences in Iraq during the American invasion and it is set to be another bestseller.
I'm not sure quite what I expected when I turned up at the Merrion hotel to interview Åsne Seierstad, but it definitely wasn't the glamorous, beautiful woman who was sitting on a couch in the bar. Åsne Seierstad would turn heads, so how did this beautiful if somewhat delicate creature survive one hundred and one days in Baghdad with bombs falling all around her and three months living in Afghanistan?
Being in Kabul and living with the bookseller and his family sounded horrific how did you cope?
It was interesting of course but it was hard because life is so different there. I think as human beings we can easily adapt to new situations. The psychological part of it was more difficult due to the fact that they can't decide themselves about their lives and their future. Being a bit "trapped", I could do whatever I liked so I decided to live like them and only leave the house when they did. Obviously I got a bit frustrated about that, but I forced myself to try it.
So what did you think of Sultan as a person?
When I first met him I admired him. He did so much for the culture; he fought different regimes with his books and I still admire him. He is a national hero, but he is also a typical Afghan patriarch - no better or worse than others - so he's pretty average I think. Personally I could say that he could have been more tolerant and more flexible and listened to his family more; that I didn't like about him. He is very true to the [Afghan] traditions and if I don't agree with those traditions, that's my own fault really. He has his good and his bad sides and his good side is that he is a doer and a maker - he runs a successful bookshop - and his bad sides are he is old fashioned.
Have you been back to Afghanistan since your wrote the book?
No I haven't. I'm like that, I do something very intensive and I leave and I close the book. Maybe I will go back but things carry on and the war happened.
I was scared just reading One Hundred and One Days - you must have been terrified?
Of course yes, but when you go into war you have to make the decision to put aside your fear. Of course I was afraid but I never panicked, I carried around this ice-cold fear inside me, I was going around thinking, "I'm being bombed ok", but I was never thinking "Oh my god I'm going to die". It was only afterwards that I realised how scared I'd been.
And how dangerous the situation was…
I knew about the danger but I didn't let it influence me.
You saw some horrific things in Iraq, how did you cope with that?
You have to put aside your fear and you also have to put aside your emotions in a way. If you go there with all your emotions like an ordinary person you wouldn't cope. It is very hard.
Did the images stay with you?
Yes of course but they don't haunt me. In the moment I reacted, I cried. The images did stay with me but they don't give me nightmares. They give certain seriousness to life, all those children who will never grow up.
You met some very brave ordinary people, but when the Americans invaded the Iraqis didn't exactly welcome them did they?
The American's liberated them but then they stayed. Why should the Iraqis accept that? Some people were against the invasion, others said it was great to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they thought the Americans would install some security - but they didn't and now it's just a mess and the American's can't leave. It's a very complex situation but I don't think people in the West understand what it feels like to be bombed and invaded. They feel occupied by people with different backgrounds and different religions. How would we feel if people were coming to kill our president, take over our resources and kill our children? That's what the Iraqis feel is happening, it feels like an occupation.
To write this book you had to try to not be too political but there are some innuendoes?
I always do that even with my articles. I'm trying to be a journalist and report what I see and what I hear but of course sometimes my feelings come through. In The Bookseller of Kabul it might come through that I don't think Sultan is particularly fair, but it's not supposed to. Sometimes it's not possible though to stop your feelings seeping in to what you write.
What has happened to Aliya your translator?
She wants Saddam back. She was happy with her life and she didn't know any other way and her family had a great life. None of her family was affected by Saddam, you find many Iraqis have family members tortured and killed and some just disappeared. They had a very strong hatred for Saddam, but she didn't. I'm still in touch with her but I don't confront her. But now she sees a town that is bombed out, looted. You can't travel anywhere, mothers don't send their children go to school because it's too dangerous so she wants the old way back.
When you were in Iraq your family and your editor were trying to get you to leave, how did you feel when you got home?
I've been so busy since I came back I haven't had time to suffer at all, but I am aware that whatever you do in life affects you. Doing nothing affects you too, but doing a lot affects you. Maybe one day I will just fall down and sleep for a couple of years. That would be quite boring but at some point it will probably happen. I'm very tired at the moment and I'm taking a year off. I'm tired of working and producing. I really want to read. When you write you get information but you're just giving it out all the time. I really just want to sit and read and take it all in. I'm reading the classics at the moment, nice sentences. I'm going to go skiing and eat nice food.
So what's next for you?
I don't know, I will see what happens in the world. I wouldn't go back to Iraq, not now, it's too dangerous. You can't go anywhere - you would just be trapped in Baghdad and it's too dangerous. This year I covered the recent election in the United States, not the campaign though. Every weekend I was doing a piece for my newspaper. One week I covered religion and stayed in a Baptist church. I covered education and stayed in a school one week and then spent a week in a juvenile prison in California. So I didn't cover the campaign, as that didn't interest me because elections are quite boring! I wanted to focus on things that people are interested in, like what does it mean to be a Republican. So maybe my next book will be about the United States.
Whatever it's about I'll be first in line to buy it.
For those of you who like me are dying of curiosity, the Italian Lorenzo in One Hundred and One Days, did make it to Mount Everest! Those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about - go out and a buy the book, it's well worth it.
Åsne Seierstad was in conversation with the Techie.
To read our review of A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journalclick here or The Bookseller of Kabulclick here
