Set in 1970s Afghanistan, A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear tells the story of Farhad, a young man who runs afoul of the repressive regime's police. He's badly beaten, and much of the book is concerned with him trying to understand what's happened to him, where he is now, and what he should do next. A Thousand Rooms would probably work better for you if you know more about mid-century Afghan history than I do, to provide the context for Farhad's circumstances, and I have no idea what to make of the book's slightly Oedipal weirdness about women—I think a lot hinges on whether or not you decide that what's happening is "really" happening or whether it's Farhad dreaming or hallucinating. A surreal and tense novella. ( )

A man wakes up beaten and bloody in the sewer beside the road unsure of who he is or how he got there. Over the next 24 hours his memory comes back in bits and pieces, told in reverse chronological order in alternating chapters with the present. Within the span of a few days, the life of an ordinary young man is destroyed during the violent, hopeless period of coups and invasion that defined the 1970s in Afghanistan. A grim but moving story of loss and unfulfilled hope. ( )

A book that got me. Not right from the start, that was strange. I had no idea where I was, who I was or when.
But gradually following the shards of the main character's story, things get clearer and more grim. Until you grasp the bigger (nearly the complete) picture and then the book stops. It left me quite alone, I would have liked to learn what happened, instead of guessing. I've never been a fan of that kind of endings and that still hasn't changed. ( )

Farhad lives in Afghanistan and one night he is late for curfew and he is beat up by guards. Mahnaz finds him and contacts his family so he can be smuggled into Pakistan. I'm not sure I caught all the meaning in this book, not know a lot about Afghanistan. the book is written very disjointed and it's hard to tell what is real and what Farhad is dreaming. ( )

Very intense! Excellent chilling novella/short novel of only 147 pp. set in 1980's Afghanistan. A young student, Farhad, is drunk and out after curfew. Stopped by some soldiers on patrol, he's roughed up very badly then rescued by a young widow, Mahnaz, and taken to her house as he lies injured and bleeding on the ground. Much of the novel consists of his stream-of-consciousness thoughts, trying to reconstruct events in his mind, interspersed with distorted and twisted dreams, nightmares, and memories. He thinks of fleeing the harsh political situation to Pakistan. He begins to feel an infatuation for the woman for which he feels guilty--conservative Muslim men are never supposed to see or be in the company of a woman not their wife or family member. He is breaking a social taboo; the drinking was bad enough. The author's terse and incisive style put me right into Farhad's mind: with his dreams, fears, hallucinations... This is a must-read!! Fortunately, a glossary defined many Muslim, Persian or Afghani terms or place names used in the story. For instance, the "thousand rooms" is the Afghani expression for a labyrinth. The cover of the book displays the carpet in Farhad's family home; this carpet is incidental to the story. ( )