This fast-paced memoir is a personal account of Smith’s experiences working on the evacuation of Kabul in the heady days following the collapse of the Afghan republic on 15 August 2021.

On return to Australia from Kabul, Smith wrote a 90,000 word first draft of this book in a sleepless two-week binge while COVID quarantining in an Adelaide hotel.

This fast-paced memoir is a personal account of Smith’s experiences working on the evacuation of Kabul in the heady days following the collapse of the Afghan republic on 15 August 2021.

On return to Australia from Kabul, Smith wrote a 90,000 word first draft of this book in a sleepless two-week binge while COVID quarantining in an Adelaide hotel. Two weeks in the writing, two years in the editing, the book sizzles with the rawness of immediate experience while benefiting from the structure of a story well told.

The Sparrows of Kabul is vivid reportage from someone who was there. A dramatic, poignant funny, sad and above all, human account of Australia’s evacuation mission which ultimately managed to extract 4100 vulnerable people from the clutches of the Taliban.

We are left admiring the courage and tenacity of so many Afghan men, women and children who, in a last-ditch dash for freedom, braved the human cattle yards outside the gates of Kabul Airport, as well as the public servants and soldiers who helped them.

The Sparrows of Kabul is the culmination of a remarkably sustained piece of storytelling by a writer regarded by many as a national treasure and the poet of Australia’s Afghanistan experience.