Book review: In Sparks Like Stars, the story of a girl's determination set against Afghanistan's turbulent history

Nadia Hashimi is an American novelist who tells powerful stories drawing upon her Afghan heritage. They open pathways of discovery for people whose impressions of Afghanistan are limited to images of warlords, veiled women and orphaned children. Her latest book, Sparks Like Stars, released in 2021 a few months before the Taliban captured power in most of Afghanistan and brought an end to the War on Terror led by the United States after 9/11.

The author grew up in New York and New Jersey but her parents were born in Afghanistan. They left their homeland in the early 1970s before the Soviet invasion. Their childhood memories are made of “crisp melons, stern teachers, kites and bicycles, the indulgent hugs of a grandmother, and poetry-filled nights”. This novel, therefore, is not a work of autobiography disguised as fiction. It is based on historical facts and archival research.

Published by HarperCollins, it is a tale of loyalty and deceit, and of loss and recovery. It begins in 1978, the year of the Saur Revolution, when Afghan President General Mohammed Daoud Khan was overthrown in a coup that resulted in the formation of a new government backed by the Soviets. He was killed inside his presidential palace along with most of his family. These murders were carried out by Afghan military officers who had turned against him.

Hashimi’s novel revolves around a fictional character named Sitara Zamani, who is the daughter of the president’s most trusted advisor and the closest friend of the president’s grandchildren. Sitara’s parents and her younger brother are killed during the attack on the palace. The girl manages to escape, thanks to the kindness of a soldier who spots her amidst the sea of blood and dead bodies. He leaves her with an American diplomat named Antonia.

This novel will help you empathise with children whose lives are devastated by war. They have no say in the political decisions that alter their world but they are forced to deal with the consequences. All the certainties that once gave them comfort disappear overnight. They are haunted by the faces of the dead, and they feel guilty for being alive. The trauma continues into their adulthood, and their wounds make it difficult to forge new relationships.

Sitara is heartbroken with the horrific events that have unfolded before her own eyes but finds the courage to say yes when Antonia hatches a plan to take her to the United States. Sitara worries that bureaucratic protocols in the US embassy might delay her safe exit from Kabul. Antonia’s mother, Tilly, takes Sitara out of the country with a bunch of hippies going to Pakistan. Tilly tells them that she is Sitara’s grandmother. This sounds bizarre but it works.

Through Antonia and Tilly, the novelist seems to show us that it is unwise to make sweeping generalisations about people of any nationality based on what their governments do. These courageous women put their own lives at risk to make sure that Sitara is protected from further harm. Tilly brings her to the US embassy in Islamabad, and they fly out together. The journey is a difficult one because Tilly has cancer. She dies soon after they reach the US.

I will not ruin your reading experience by divulging any details about how Sitara gets a US visa, how she gets past security, and how she survives the cruel foster home that she is placed in before she reunites with Antonia. The author has told Sitara’s story with a series of dramatic twists and turns that will keep you hooked until you reach the last page of the book. You will find yourself rooting for her at every step. Her determination is astounding.

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The year is 2008. Sitara has become a doctor. Grief continues to gnaw at her. She wants to know what happened to her parents and her brother, whether they got a dignified burial, and if there are any relatives who can give her a clue. One day, the Afghan soldier who had brought Sitara to Antonia’s doorstep in Kabul appears at the hospital in the US. Sitara is desperate for answers but he has none to offer. He says, “What can I say that will free you?”

At this time, Sitara is also dating an American man named Adam who has political ambitions. He wants to marry Sitara but for the wrong reasons. He believes that voters tend to favour candidates that they like. As Sitara is a woman of colour who works to provide healthcare to some of the most vulnerable people in the country, he thinks that will make him look good. Hashimi’s nuanced portrayal of the dynamics in their relationship is worth applauding.

Sitara has better things to look forward to than being a trophy wife. She returns to Kabul when Antonia tells her that the new Afghan government has formed a commission to search for the bodies of people who were butchered during the Saur Revolution. Antonia accompanies her, and so does an American journalist named Clay who was once embedded among the US troops in Kabul. Sitara knows him from a book talk she attended in New York.

Hashimi offers a moving account of Sitara’s return. She has no one to call her own in that city, so the three of them check into a hotel after passing through “multiple security checkpoints, pat-downs and metal detectors”. While handing over her passport to the receptionist at the front desk, Sitara wonders, “Could she be a cousin? Maybe the sister of someone I knew?” She longs for a link to her past, and tries hard to locate the graves of her parents and brother.

Sitara is the custodian of “a gold ring with inset teardrops of turquoise and garnet” found at Ai-Khanoum, an ancient Greek city located in northern Afghanistan. She wants to deposit it at Kabul Museum. Hashimi cleverly uses Sitara’s meeting with Nasrat, the head of the museum, to comment on how Afghan treasures have been stolen and sold on the international black market. Nasrat tells Sitara, “Our antiquities are more welcome than refugees.”

Does Sitara eventually learn about the resting place of her parents and brother? Does she give up and go back to the US? Does she stay in Kabul to build a new life in her old home? Read the book to know the answers to these questions. Hashimi will tug at your heartstrings with Sitara’s story, and also make you think hard about the history behind what is happening in Afghanistan today. It all goes back to a time much before 9/11 and the War on Terror.

Sitara remembers how her deceased father once described the Cold War. He said, “One dollar comes in, two rubles come in. One builds a university, another builds a tunnel. One day I told the Americans that the Russians were planning an irrigation project for one of the provinces. The next day the Americans asked for a meeting with me to discuss building a highway across the country. They fight like siblings and we are the favourite toy.”

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Chintan Girish Modi is a Mumbai-based writer who tweets @chintan_connect