Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, who spent months with bookseller Shah Muhammad Rais, tells of relief over ruling
Åsne Seierstad, who wrote The Bookseller of Kabul, said there was nothing she would change about the book. Photograph: Murdo Macleod
It provided a compelling picture of the life of an Afghan family living under the tyranny of the Taliban and became the bestselling nonfiction book in Norwegian history, before being denounced as inaccurate and invasive by its main characters.
But an appeal court in Norway overturned a previous ruling and cleared the author of The Bookseller of Kabul and her publisher, Cappelen Damm, of invading the privacy of the family she lived with and wrote about, and concluded that the facts of the book were accurate.
Åsne Seierstad, a Norwegian freelance journalist who wrote The Bookseller of Kabul after spending months living with Afghan bookseller Shah Muhammad Rais and his two wives, told the Guardian on Tuesday she was relieved that the eight-year legal battle that followed the book's publication was over. "The judgment means a lot. As a journalist being accused of invading someone's privacy, there is always a risk that it will stick to your name," she said. "If my name had not been cleared, it would have been difficult, perhaps impossible, to continue as a journalist."
Suraia Rais, the second wife of the real-life bookseller, whom he married, according to the book, when she was a girl of 16, filed the complaint against Seierstad. In a previous hearing, the Oslo district court ruled that Seirstad had invaded Rais's privacy, but on Tuesday Norway's supreme court cleared the author of any wrongdoing. In a statement Seierstad's lawyer Anne Gaustad said the court had concluded "the family was well aware of the nature of the book project", adding that Seierstad was found "not to have acted negligently, and the content of the book was essentially deemed true".
Full report at The Guardian
But an appeal court in Norway overturned a previous ruling and cleared the author of The Bookseller of Kabul and her publisher, Cappelen Damm, of invading the privacy of the family she lived with and wrote about, and concluded that the facts of the book were accurate.
Åsne Seierstad, a Norwegian freelance journalist who wrote The Bookseller of Kabul after spending months living with Afghan bookseller Shah Muhammad Rais and his two wives, told the Guardian on Tuesday she was relieved that the eight-year legal battle that followed the book's publication was over. "The judgment means a lot. As a journalist being accused of invading someone's privacy, there is always a risk that it will stick to your name," she said. "If my name had not been cleared, it would have been difficult, perhaps impossible, to continue as a journalist."
Suraia Rais, the second wife of the real-life bookseller, whom he married, according to the book, when she was a girl of 16, filed the complaint against Seierstad. In a previous hearing, the Oslo district court ruled that Seirstad had invaded Rais's privacy, but on Tuesday Norway's supreme court cleared the author of any wrongdoing. In a statement Seierstad's lawyer Anne Gaustad said the court had concluded "the family was well aware of the nature of the book project", adding that Seierstad was found "not to have acted negligently, and the content of the book was essentially deemed true".
Full report at The Guardian
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