The Gardener of Lashkar Gah
The Afghans Who Risked Everything to Fight the Taliban
Larisa Brown
Bloomsbury Continuum, New York, 2024, 288 pages
Book Review published on: March 1, 2024
The U.S. decision to fully withdraw from Afghanistan in 2020, the execution of that decision in 2021, and the tumultuous events that followed are well-documented in international media. For those of us who served there, regardless of when or how often, these events likely brought a mix of emotions. And no matter how one felt about the end state in Afghanistan in 2021, it was impossible—at least for me—to be unmoved by the plight of many of the Afghan partners upon whom coalition nations, including NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, were heavily dependent, particularly those who worked as interpreters.
Whether they were Soviet- or International Security Assistance Force-trained soldiers or police, local merchants or laborers, students or government officials, our Afghan partners worked in an environment that most of us in the West simply cannot understand. And whether their motivations were to simply feed their families, to better position themselves in a possible Western-oriented Afghanistan, their hatred for the Taliban, or because they believed in what the coalition were trying to achieve, these Afghans performed this service at great personal risk. Many were labeled as collaborators by the Taliban because of their work, and they were constantly threatened while Western forces remained in the country and then relentlessly pursued by the Taliban as those Western forces departed.
With Lashkar Gah—capital of Helmand and headquarters for British forces in the province until 2014—serving as geographic anchor for the book, Larisa Brown’s The Gardener of Lashkar Gah: The Afghans Who Risked Everything to Fight the Taliban tells the stories of Afghans who worked with the British government, the consequences of their service, and their attempts to survive in the aftermath of the Western military withdrawal in 2021. In her preface, which summarizes her bona fides, Brown explains her decision to convey the plight of these people by focusing on the experiences of the Gul family, who worked for the British during their yearslong mission in Helmand Province.
While most of the Afghans in the book worked as interpreters, Shaista Gul, to whom we are first introduced, became known for his work tending and expanding a garden within the UK headquarters, which the author describes as an “80ft-square [sic] haven of the world’s best-looking poppies, gaudy orange marigolds and hollyhocks that were as tall as the soldiers on the base” (p. 1). We learn early in the book that it is partially through Shaista’s work in the garden of Lashkar Gah that his son, Jamal, is afforded the opportunity to work as a frontline interpreter for the British. Jamal’s decision to do so is pivotal in the story of the Gul family; the juxtaposition of additional risk he brings to his family with his increased ability to work toward their safety is a fascinating theme throughout the book. Many who visited Lashkar Gah fondly recalled the garden even years later; some of those same people help Jamal get his family to safety after learning the gardener is his father.
This starting point frames the experiences Brown relays to the reader, which expand to include other families and their stories. Shaista’s garden, which we can only assume did not survive the return of the Taliban, plays a metaphorical role throughout the course of the book as Brown paints a picture of a family who, in a short period of years, was forced to trade a relatively stable life in Lashkar Gah for life in hiding before embarking on a harrowing flight from home to Kabul in an ultimately failed attempt to flee the country. In a final and desperate action, the Guls made a high-risk trek through Kandahar before successfully escaping to Pakistan via a border crossing.
Based on multiple conversations with the Gul family after they eventually were able to flee to the UK, and Brown’s work attempting to drive the British government to do more to assist former Afghan partners at risk of imprisonment or execution by the Taliban, the author presents a compelling and intimate glimpse into experiences of loss, terror, triumph, displacement, and sheer determination. She does so by adroitly changing viewpoints amongst Shaista, Jamal, and supporting characters while occasionally writing as a narrator and blending what feels like firsthand observations with illustrative prose. Her description of the Gul family’s attempt to reach a British evacuation flight from Kabul in August 2021 evokes a Hollywood blockbuster, but instead of the expected deus ex machina sweeping in to save the family we are led through what was a horrific reality for hundreds if not thousands of Afghans during the final days of the U.S. and UK presence in the country. It is a stark illustration of a consequence of our nations’ time in Afghanistan.
The Gardener of Lashkar Gah is a moving, well-written, and comprehensively documented read. I found it to be straight forward in that it generally allows readers to form their own conclusions about UK (or U.S.) government policy even as it describes the consequences. Shaista’s own thoughts on that matter changed over the course of time: “When Shaista applied to work with the British forces back in 2007, he did so believing the Western troops would make his country a better place. Now he knew it had all been for nothing” (p. 256). At only 264 pages, the book represents a small investment of time that will leave the reader with greater insight into the struggles of the thousands of Afghans who found themselves, and their families, caught up in violent events beyond their control.
Book Review written by: Sean R. Kentch, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas