The Opium Prince
SynopsisPlot
Afghanistan, 1970s. Born to an American mother and a late Afghan war hero, Daniel Sajadi has spent his life navigating a complex identity. After years in Los Angeles, he is returning home to Kabul at the helm of a US foreign aid agency dedicated to eradicating the poppy fields that feed the world’s opiate addiction. But on the drive out of Kabul for an anniversary trip with his wife, Daniel accidentally hits and kills a young Kochi girl named Telaya. He is let off with a nominal fine, in part because nomad tribes are ignored in the eyes of the law, but also because a mysterious witness named Taj Maleki intercedes on his behalf. Wracked with guilt and visions of Telaya, Daniel begins to unravel, running from his crumbling marriage and escalating threats from Taj, who turns out to be a powerful opium khan willing to go to extremes to save his poppies.
Story
About this book
Daniel Sajadi carries a divided history. His father was an Afghan war hero, his mother American, and he grew up partly in Los Angeles before returning to Kabul to lead a US foreign aid program. His mission is to eliminate the poppy fields in a region called Fever Valley, where opium production supplies a global drug trade. The 1970s setting places the story in Afghanistan just before the political upheavals that would reshape the country.
On a drive outside Kabul with his wife Rebecca, Daniel strikes and kills a young Kochi nomad girl named Telaya. Kochi communities occupy a marginal place in Afghan law, and Daniel escapes with only a small fine, helped by a stranger named Taj Maleki who speaks on his behalf at the scene. Taj, however, is an opium lord with his own reasons for wanting Daniel in his debt. As Daniel's guilt over Telaya's death grows, so does Taj's leverage over him.
The novel follows Daniel's deteriorating marriage and his entanglement with Taj against a backdrop of criminal networks and political instability. Jasmine Aimaq sets her debut at a moment when Afghanistan's drug economy and its shifting power structures were closely linked, and the story traces those connections through one man caught between them.
