importance. After all, as she stated in an interview:

How can we understand the Afghans without seeking them out, asking them about things, or the Chechens, Serbs or Iraqis, or the drug−addicted or different groups, parents, parents of young children or whatever? (Larssen, 2013, p.93)

Seierstad does indeed pose some interesting points about the role of the writer and the journalist. How can an authentic intimate relationship between writer and native countryman and woman be built if we did not ask questions that many of us would be far too scared to ask? How can we truly seek out another culture if we stay within our own confinements and own territory? The answer is simply, we cannot. The Bookseller of Kabul therefore personifies literary journalism at its best,