Shutting the Closet Tight
The gay Afghan protagonist of this novel finds that acceptance is ever-elusive
In The Carpet Weaver, journalist and activist Nemat Sadat tells the story of a young boy’s transition to adulthood against the backdrop of severe changes in his homeland. Just as Kanishka Nurzada, the protagonist, gathers courage to tell his parents about his sexuality, chaos erupts in the country and his life changes in ways he had never imaglate
The politics of the region becomes a powerful backdrop to Kanishka’s life story, as he carries his secret in fear.
When the novel opens, we see Kanishka living with his parents and sister, struggling to come to terms with his attraction for men. Even at that time, when life was relatively easy, religious and cultural norms frowned upon homosexuality and could even attract the death penalty if discovered. To make matters worse, Kanishka’s close friend, with whom he had hoped to have a lasting relationship, expresses his unwillingness to come out because of the danger involved. However, a midnight knock on the front door pushes back Kanishka’s personal battles and forces him to become the protector of his family.
Set in Afghanistan in the 1970s, when a coup topples the president and a new regime takes over, the author fills the reader on the events that eventually led to the Soviet occupation and the subsequent radicalisation of the country. Divided into three parts, the first section depicts how a relatively free society—where young people were encouraged to freely mingle and choose their life partners— changes into a violent, intoleined. rant zone. The second section shows Kanishka becoming a carpet weaver in order to protect his family and, in the third, he realises that even in the US, where he flees with his family, the acceptance he was seeking would not come as easily as he had expected.
Nemat Sadat’s The Carpet Weaver deals with many issues that appear in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, but while Hosseini’s Amir finally gets a chance to make amends, Kanishka’s battle for acceptance goes on even after he reaches the land of freedom.
The book starts off slow and gathers momentum in the middle before slowing down again. It does, however, undoubtedly tell an honest and compassionate story.
The politics of 1970s Afghanistan is a powerful backdrop to the book's homosexual protagonist's story