the new yorker ran a wonderful piece on this two years ago, not coincidentally by its climate change reporter. it's a sad day every time humanity loses part of its common heritage.
Have you read A Thousand Splendid Suns? Or the Bookseller of Kabul? The descriptions of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan are absolutely heart-wrenching.
i haven't read any hosseini. i'd be all the more eager to read them in light of that. the bamiyan buddhas is the moment to which every 21st-century cultural heritage law scholar must return; in my last law school essay on the subject, i referred to it as the 9/11 of cultural heritage - it was the same year, and it became an instant reference point for infamous extremism as well as cultural destruction.
I'm going through Bookseller now, with the Kite Runner next. Bookseller is by Seierstad . . . I'm having trouble with it because she's writing like a journalist, which means short, disjointed pieces and I don't think it's a well-written novel (or maybe it's just taking a few chapters for her to hit her stride, I'm not sure). The editors should have caught that.
But yes, it was the 9/11 of cultural heritage, and an event that rocked the entire world in its deliberate maliciousness.
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But yes, it was the 9/11 of cultural heritage, and an event that rocked the entire world in its deliberate maliciousness.
I need to go back to bed.
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