99 Nights In Logar

99 NIGHTS IN LOGAR

by Jamil Jan Kochai

 

Nomination: PEN/Hemingway Longlist 2020

 

Date Read: August 3, 2021

 

99 Nights In Logar follows Marwand and his family, U.S. citizens that have returned to Afghanistan to visit their extended family. What makes this novel so interesting is having Marwand view the country of his birth through a foreigner’s eyes. The other piece that resonated with me is, for better or worse, Marwand’s extended family is a vast network of cousins, aunts, and uncles that keep him firmly rooted in the traditions and expectations of an Afghani. 

 

From the moment he arrives, Marwand is eager to atone for his past behavior to the dog at the family compound, Budabash. Without any caution, he approaches the dog and he bites the tip of Marwand’s finger off. As bad as you feel for the dog being chained up and abused by the neighborhood children, you realize that he has become a beast passed redemption. Marwand is convinced Budabash has become a demon.

 

Afghanistan, as seen through the eyes of author Kochai, is a war-torn country that bears the scars of the Russians, the Taliban, the Americans and other tribal skirmishes that have plagued it for the last number of years. When did Afghanistan last know peace? Coming from America, Marwand is not accustomed to the sounds of semi-automatic weapons, helicopters hovering overhead and the rumble of bombs exploding in the nearby hills. I can only imagine how unnerving those foreign sounds must be.

 

After Budabash goes missing, Marwand and his cousins put their fears aside and embark on a rescue mission. Through an increasingly complicated family tree, stories within stories and a sprinkling of magical realism, the reader is exposed to the wounds that all Afghanis carry – no one has survived unscathed by the endless war that has engulfed this precarious country.

 

One other interesting item to note is that the 99 nights Marwand’s family spends in Locar also correspond to the 99 names of Allah, a central cultural and religious figure in Afghani life.

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