Caravans 1973

Caravans, James Michener's 1963 novel about the then-largely unknown country of Afghanistan, is a historical novel in more ways than one. Written sixteen years before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that would spark three decades of war, Caravans takes the reader even farther back than Michener's own time to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in the days just after the end of World War II. Part of what makes this novel so fascinating is that the reader knows more about Afghan history than Michener did while writing it and Michener knows more than the characters because he has placed a 16-year gap between them and his own time. The layers of history almost spread out before the readers' eyes, lending a poignant depth to the story.