Dancing with Darkness

A remarkable book… and an engrossing read
The Daily Mail

An extraordinary account, both informative and moving
Alexander McCall Smith

On 7th July 2005, Magsie Hamilton Little, then a part-time student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, witnessed the carnage caused by a suicide bomber on a London bus in Tavistock Square. At a loss to reconcile the hatred behind the attacks with the Islamic world that she had been studying, she felt compelled to risk travelling to the place that many see as the heart of the conflict between East and West, in a search for understanding. She caught a plane to Afghanistan.

In Kabul, she was able to see a side of Afghan life that is seldom reported in the Western press. She experienced daily life through the net of her burka and encountered the humanity of the Afghans in their struggle to survive. She found warmth and friendship, and an insight into the Islamic faith and culture books could never offer.

When she returned to London, her life resumed as normal. It was many months later that a phone call out of the blue turned her world upside down again, sending her back to the country and the people she had come to love. It was only then that her real journey began.