The Finest Hotel in Kabul | A People’s History of Afghanistan | Lyse Doucet

In 1969, the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul opened its doors: a glistening white box, high on a hill, that reflected Afghans’ hopes of a modern, democratic future.

In the decades since, its staff have endured two coups, a Soviet occupation, the US invasion, and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. The Inter-Con has never closed its doors.

Here, Lyse Doucet offers a vividly human history of modern Afghanistan through the lives of the people who have passed through its battered halls. It is the story of a hotel, and the story of a people.

Lyse Doucet first arrived at the Kabul Inter-Continental Hotel on Christmas Day 1988, the day after her thirtieth birthday, to cover the withdrawal of Soviet troops. But she was immediately taken by the faded grandeur of the hotel and the warmth of its staff. Over the next four decades, Lyse would become one of the world’s best-respected war correspondents, reporting on moments from the Arab Spring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as Chief International Correspondent for the BBC. Yet, she is always drawn back to her Afghan home, the hotel most people just call the ‘Inter-Con’. Here, by drawing upon years of conversations with its staff and guests, she tells the story that only she can.