Perspective

The book is written in the third person point of view with the narrator being the author who lived with the Kahn family for a while to gather material for the book and to experience everyday life in Afghanistan. This allows her to learn the trials and tribulations of everyday life and to learn how people cope with it. She writes about each of the family members and what their life is like and what they can and cannot do about it. She writes about several other people she meets.

Seierstad could have written the book from the first person point of view and told of her own experiences, but this would have confined the knowledge of the reader to events that occurred in the presence of the author. The third person point of view allows the author greater latitude to provide background, historical and other information to...