What do you think?
Rate this book
Most Dangerous, Most Unmerciful: Stories from Afghanistan
Timely literary reporting from Afghanistan by one of our most important nonfiction writers includes insightful new writing since the US pull-out in 2021.
"J. Malcolm Garcia has channeled the empathetic ear of Studs Terkel and the investigative skills of the best literary journalists ... These stories will remain in the heart and mind’s eye forever.” –Beth Taylor, author of The Plain Language of Love and Loss
Reporting from Kabul and Kandahar between 2001 and 2015, J. Malcolm Garcia tells us what actually happened to the Afghan people as the conflict between first world nations and fundamentalists raged. In telling the stories of ordinary Afghans, Garcia shows the impact of years of occupation and war—and the sudden and harsh changes as new occupiers push in—on a people and their culture.
Garcia meets Laila Haidary—everyone calls her “mother”—who, with no resources to speak of, gives addicts living on the street one month of detoxification and clean living, while at the same time sending her own children to make the perilous journey to Western Europe as best they can. And there is nine-year-old Ghani, who earns a few dollars a day collecting cans on the street to support his two brothers and sister now that his father has died of a brain tumor. There are the translators and fixers Garcia hires, who risk their lives working for foreigners against the warnings of the Taliban, and also the US soldiers who don’t understand what their mission is here, and why they can’t just do what they are trained to do, which is to seek out and kill the enemy.
J. Malcolm Garcia has been compared to the Russian writer Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, for how the voices of everyday people ring out in the stories he tells. Most Dangerous, Most Unmerciful is an essential work of literature that documents one of the true disasters of our age, at the same time as it celebrates the human endurance and ingenuity of the Afghans we meet in these pages, and affirms the role journalists can play to make sure their stories can be heard.
"J. Malcolm Garcia has channeled the empathetic ear of Studs Terkel and the investigative skills of the best literary journalists ... These stories will remain in the heart and mind’s eye forever.” –Beth Taylor, author of The Plain Language of Love and Loss
Reporting from Kabul and Kandahar between 2001 and 2015, J. Malcolm Garcia tells us what actually happened to the Afghan people as the conflict between first world nations and fundamentalists raged. In telling the stories of ordinary Afghans, Garcia shows the impact of years of occupation and war—and the sudden and harsh changes as new occupiers push in—on a people and their culture.
Garcia meets Laila Haidary—everyone calls her “mother”—who, with no resources to speak of, gives addicts living on the street one month of detoxification and clean living, while at the same time sending her own children to make the perilous journey to Western Europe as best they can. And there is nine-year-old Ghani, who earns a few dollars a day collecting cans on the street to support his two brothers and sister now that his father has died of a brain tumor. There are the translators and fixers Garcia hires, who risk their lives working for foreigners against the warnings of the Taliban, and also the US soldiers who don’t understand what their mission is here, and why they can’t just do what they are trained to do, which is to seek out and kill the enemy.
J. Malcolm Garcia has been compared to the Russian writer Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, for how the voices of everyday people ring out in the stories he tells. Most Dangerous, Most Unmerciful is an essential work of literature that documents one of the true disasters of our age, at the same time as it celebrates the human endurance and ingenuity of the Afghans we meet in these pages, and affirms the role journalists can play to make sure their stories can be heard.
- GenresNonfiction
267 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 6, 2022
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 30, 2026
Coincidentally, I completed this book the day the US forces completely withdrew from Iraq. At the writing of this book, US forces & NATO were planning to withdraw from Afghanistan & attack Iraq. This book presents glimpses of lives of & snatches of conversations with common Afghans, gathered during his multiple journalistic work trips to the country. As the book states, Garcia's "beat is the stories of people who're not newsworthy, people who struggle to survive".
While this book is set somewhere during Hamid Karzai's presidency, yet its characters come from different times & locations, offering us experiences of public life under the rule of the Soviets, the Taliban, and the US. What emerges are contrasting layers of temporary modernity, freedom, and development juxtaposed against extreme regression & suppression. Women from one generation vividly reminisce about the Taliban imposed hijabs, while Garcia interacted with another generation wearing jeans, working as fashion models, attending college; around youngsters with their eyes glued to their iPhones while munching on burgers.
The only constants across all of these generations were the fighting and bloodshed, the constant fear of death, deep uncertainty about their future, and aspiring or yearning to go or flee abroad, their heartstrings still attached to the only place they could ever call home. To quote, "Being alive in Afghanistan is a big thing. When insurgents attach magnet bombs to cars, living one day to the next can't be taken for granted."
Humans or animals, male or female, young or old, living or dead, soldiers, cops, or civilians, employed or unemployed—regardless of political leanings—Garcia has covered them all. Astonishingly, everyone finishes their unique stories with the exact same conclusion: they are afraid, they are uncertain, and they wish they could just leave.
Because this book was set in the time when Western forces were to exit from Afghanistan & shifting their focus on Iraq, there's an air of anxiety, as everyone knows what would happen next. This is repeated so many times, it gives context to the visuals the world eventually witnessed in shock & disbelief: of desperate Afghans chasing the last aircrafts taking Westerners out of Afghanistan. It makes perfect sense now why some would rather risk literally hanging on to the outside of moving airplanes than staying behind.
Afghanistan has always put me in a dilemma. I want to feel bad for them. But then I remember Farkhunda. Garcia remembers her too, as do the Afghans but the latter have mixed opinions about her; and hence my dilemma. I was grateful that Garcia dedicated a slightly long yet necessary chapter to her memory.
As I read, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to them now—the brave lady who ran a drug rehab center all by herself, the young woman who had just opened a toy shop, another who used to work as a model, yet another who ran an animal shelter, the countless individuals who worked for the US military, NATO, foreign companies, and visitors.
In the final chapter, Garcia wonders about them too. This ultimately makes me think about him just as much as about the book and its subjects. How do journalists tackle the agonizing dilemma of reporting without getting involved? How does one not end up forming deep, permanent bonds with the people they have interacted with, worked, travelled & dined with? How does one cope with one's persistent inability to help them!
This book left me with loads to think about. I know I am going to have a hangover from this read for many days to come.
While this book is set somewhere during Hamid Karzai's presidency, yet its characters come from different times & locations, offering us experiences of public life under the rule of the Soviets, the Taliban, and the US. What emerges are contrasting layers of temporary modernity, freedom, and development juxtaposed against extreme regression & suppression. Women from one generation vividly reminisce about the Taliban imposed hijabs, while Garcia interacted with another generation wearing jeans, working as fashion models, attending college; around youngsters with their eyes glued to their iPhones while munching on burgers.
The only constants across all of these generations were the fighting and bloodshed, the constant fear of death, deep uncertainty about their future, and aspiring or yearning to go or flee abroad, their heartstrings still attached to the only place they could ever call home. To quote, "Being alive in Afghanistan is a big thing. When insurgents attach magnet bombs to cars, living one day to the next can't be taken for granted."
Humans or animals, male or female, young or old, living or dead, soldiers, cops, or civilians, employed or unemployed—regardless of political leanings—Garcia has covered them all. Astonishingly, everyone finishes their unique stories with the exact same conclusion: they are afraid, they are uncertain, and they wish they could just leave.
Because this book was set in the time when Western forces were to exit from Afghanistan & shifting their focus on Iraq, there's an air of anxiety, as everyone knows what would happen next. This is repeated so many times, it gives context to the visuals the world eventually witnessed in shock & disbelief: of desperate Afghans chasing the last aircrafts taking Westerners out of Afghanistan. It makes perfect sense now why some would rather risk literally hanging on to the outside of moving airplanes than staying behind.
Afghanistan has always put me in a dilemma. I want to feel bad for them. But then I remember Farkhunda. Garcia remembers her too, as do the Afghans but the latter have mixed opinions about her; and hence my dilemma. I was grateful that Garcia dedicated a slightly long yet necessary chapter to her memory.
As I read, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to them now—the brave lady who ran a drug rehab center all by herself, the young woman who had just opened a toy shop, another who used to work as a model, yet another who ran an animal shelter, the countless individuals who worked for the US military, NATO, foreign companies, and visitors.
In the final chapter, Garcia wonders about them too. This ultimately makes me think about him just as much as about the book and its subjects. How do journalists tackle the agonizing dilemma of reporting without getting involved? How does one not end up forming deep, permanent bonds with the people they have interacted with, worked, travelled & dined with? How does one cope with one's persistent inability to help them!
This book left me with loads to think about. I know I am going to have a hangover from this read for many days to come.
February 7, 2025
Most unmerciful is right. It’s not a feel-good read. Each page leaves you depressed. All of the stories are remarkably bleak and some don’t have much direction, but that in and of itself is a succinct characterization of Afghanistan in the early 2000s following the American invasion (when the stories in the book take place). In a country constantly decimated by war where different tribes, religious communities, and empires take turns beating up the populace at large, there really isn’t much to be happy or hopeful about. Even the story about “Mother’s House” rehab centre is depressing and some of their addictions “counselling” sounds more like beatings and abuse. I found that this book shows how backwards, uneducated, illiterate, undeveloped, and how hopeless poor Afghanistan is and that its complex problems are not going to be solved anytime soon. Afghanistan is likely to stay an undeveloped mess for many years to come.
March 1, 2023
The chapter feral children killed me
January 7, 2024
Oh my gosh, the stories in this book. I don’t even know what to say about them.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews