The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul (originally published as A Cup of Friendship)
A Novel
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4.2 • 47 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“[Deborah] Rodriguez paints a vivid picture of Afghan culture. . . . As if Maeve Binchy had written The Kite Runner.”—Kirkus Reviews
After hard luck and heartbreak, Sunny finally finds a place to call home—in the middle of an Afghanistan war zone. There, the thirty-eight-year-old serves up her American hospitality to the expats who patronize her coffee shop, including a British journalist, a “danger pay” consultant, and a wealthy and well-connected woman. True to her name, Sunny also bonds with people whose language and landscape are unfamiliar to most Westerners, but whose hearts and souls are very much like our own: the maternal Halajan, who vividly recalls the days before the Taliban and now must hide a modern romance from her ultratraditional son; and Yazmina, a young Afghan villager with a secret that could put everyone’s life in jeopardy. In this gorgeous first novel, New York Times bestselling author Deborah Rodriguez paints a stirring portrait of a faraway place where—even in the fog of political and social conflict—friendship, passion, and hope still exist.
Originally published as A Cup of Friendship.
Praise for The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul
“A superb debut novel . . . [Deborah] Rodriguez captures place and people wholeheartedly, unveiling the faces of Afghanistan’s women through a wealth of memorable characters who light up the page.”—Publishers Weekly
“[A] fast-paced winner of a novel . . . the work of a serious artist with great powers of description at her disposal.”—The Kansas City Star
“Readers will appreciate the in-depth, sensory descriptions of this oft-mentioned and faraway place that most have never seen.”—Booklist
“Charming . . . [a book] to warm your heart.”—Good Housekeeping
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rodriguez follows bestselling memoir Kabul Beauty School with a superb debut novel centering on a group of women who come together in a Kabul coffee shop run by Sunny, a free-spirited American. Sunny takes in the young widow, Yazmina, the casualty of her uncle's debt to Afghan thugs, who had taken the girl as payment but dumped her on the side of the road when they discovered she was pregnant. Halajan is a firecracker older widow who hides her cropped hairdo, jean skirts, and love letters under her burqa. Isabel, a hard-hitting BBC journalist on location to expose the story of the destruction of the poppy fields, uncovers a deeper truth: female workers addicted to the opium they handle who are then, some with their babies, jailed for "moral crimes." Candace, a well-heeled Bostonian, has followed her Afghan boyfriend to Kabul to fund-raise for his school, but soon suspects his real motives for the school and their relationship. A craftsman and a storyteller, Rodriguez captures place and people wholeheartedly, unveiling the faces of Afghanistan's women through a wealth of memorable characters who light up the page.
