Product Description

Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills–as doctors, nurses, and therapists–seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons. Thus an idea was born.

With the help of corporate and international sponsors, the Kabul Beauty School welcomed its first class in 2003. Well meaning but sometimes brazen, Rodriguez stumbled through language barriers, overstepped cultural customs, and constantly juggled the challenges of a postwar nation even as she learned how to empower her students to become their families’ breadwinners by learning the fundamentals of coloring techniques, haircutting, and makeup.

Yet within the small haven of the beauty school, the line between teacher and student quickly blurred as these vibrant women shared with Rodriguez their stories and their hearts: the newlywed who faked her virginity on her wedding night, the twelve-year-old bride sold into marriage to pay her family’s debts, the Taliban member’s wife who pursued her training despite her husband’s constant beatings. Through these and other stories, Rodriguez found the strength to leave her own unhealthy marriage and allow herself to love again, Afghan style.

With warmth and humor, Rodriguez details the lushness of a seemingly desolate region and reveals the magnificence behind the burqa. Kabul Beauty School is a remarkable tale of an extraordinary community of women who come together and learn the arts of perms, friendship, and freedom.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #140578 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-10
• Released on: 2007-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 275 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A terrific opening chapter—colorful, suspenseful, funny—ushers readers into the curious closed world of Afghan women. A wedding is about to take place, arranged, of course, but there is a potentially dire secret—the bride is not technically a virgin. How Rodriguez, an admirably resourceful and dynamic woman, set to marry a nice Afghan man, solves this problem makes a great story, embellished as it is with all the traditional wedding preparations. Rodriguez went to Afghanistan in 2002, just after the fall of the Taliban, volunteering as a nurse's aide, but soon found that her skills as a trained hairdresser were far more in demand, both for the Western workers and, as word got out, Afghans. On a trip back to the U.S., she persuaded companies in the beauty industry to donate 10,000 boxes of products and supplies to ship to Kabul, and instantly she started a training school. Political problems ensued ("too much laughing within the school"), financial problems, cultural misunderstandings and finally the government closed the school and salon—though the reader will suspect that the endlessly ingenious Rodriguez, using her book as a wedge against authority, will triumph in the end. This witty and insightful (if light) memoir will be perfect for women's reading groups and daytime talk shows. (Apr. 10)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–In 2002, just months after the Taliban had been driven out of Afghanistan, Rodriguez, a hairdresser from Holland, MI, joined a small nongovernmental aid organization on a mission to the war-torn nation. That visit changed her life. In Kabul, she chronicles her efforts to help establish the country's first modern beauty school and training salon; along with music and kite-flying, hairdressing had been banned under the previous regime. This memoir offers a glimpse into a world Westerners seldom see–life behind the veil. Rodriguez was entranced with the delightful personalities that emerged when her students removed their burqas behind closed doors, but her book is also a tale of empowerment–both for her and the women. In a city with no mail service, she went door-to-door to recruit students from clandestine beauty shops, and there were constant efforts to shut her down. She had to convince Afghan men to work side by side with her to unpack cartons of supplies donated from the U.S. The students, however, are the heroines of this memoir. Women denied education and seldom allowed to leave their homes found they were able to support themselves and their families. Rodriguez's experiences will delight readers as she recounts such tales as two friends acting as parents and negotiating a dowry for her marriage to an Afghan man or her students puzzling over a donation of a carton of thongs. Most of all, they will share her admiration for Afghan women's survival and triumph in chaotic times.–Pat Bangs, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Pamela Constable

Almost anywhere in the world, a beauty parlor is a sanctuary from the male world, a hive of gossip, a school of feminine wiles and fount of sage advice for jittery brides-to-be.

In Afghanistan, where war and religious oppression have long kept women socially isolated, and where displays of sensual allure became criminal offenses under Taliban rule in the 1990s, the reopening of beauty parlors after the Taliban regime fell in 2001 was a widely noted symbol of the country's democratic rebirth.

But when Deborah Rodriguez, an American hairdresser, decided to contribute to Afghan women's emancipation by establishing a beauty school in Kabul, her project exposed the constraints of conservative tradition and male-ruled culture that still trap many Afghan girls and women into lives of suffering and injustice.

As readers of her Kabul Beauty School watch the makeup being applied and the curls being coiffed, we also hear the confessions of Roshanna, a tearful young bride who is terrified that her in-laws will discover she is not a virgin -- a cardinal sin by Afghan standards -- when her consummation ceremony fails to produce a bloody sheet.

We also learn the story of Mina, forcibly married to an ugly old man in repayment of a debt, then later beaten, disowned and threatened with having her only child taken away because families are feuding over her dowry money.

These women, and many others, find in Rodriguez's classes both a temporary safe haven and the seeds of future emancipation. Inevitably, though, the school has to be shut down after it becomes a target of suspicious scrutiny and bureaucratic greed -- neighbors complain there is "too much laughter" inside, while officials try to confiscate a fortune in beauty products donated from the United States.

Kabul Beauty School is not a work of literature. Its writing is clunky in some spots, breezy in others, and the text is full of clichéd epiphanies about the hardships of Third World living. A good editor would have looked up how to spell "salaam aleikum" and taken out the author's whine about having to boil water on an old gas stove. Since the book's publication, a variety of people, including her former partners, have complained that it contains numerous inaccuracies and overplays the author's role in establishing the beauty school.

But the real-life victims we meet and the tortures they routinely endure give the book its power. No reader will fail to wince at the description of a bride forced to have every pubic hair plucked so she looks as young as possible for the groom. No reader will fail to be outraged at the image of a girl's scarred back and burned feet -- all punishments inflicted by her pious Taliban husband.

When Rodriguez describes Roshanna's wedding celebration in an ornate hotel, it is with compassion born of terrible insight. "She and her husband sit without touching, without smiling, like bride and groom mannequins propped in the chairs. . . . For a moment, it's hard to believe that this woman with the dead eyes and rigid body is my Roshanna. . . . I realize she is so stunned with fear that she can't do anything other than stare. I don't even see her breathing."

Rodriguez also takes a personal plunge into the minefield of Afghan romance by marrying a man she meets there. The subplot of that tempestuous bicultural relationship is revealing, but it also has a self-indulgently confessional quality. In contrast, her story of the beauty school and the Afghan women who found refuge there is an important testimonial to the stubborn misogyny of a country many earnest Westerners are trying so hard to change.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Beauty in Conflict: The Kabul Beauty School
A work of non-fiction Deborah Rodriguez's book could almost be fictional. Only that it isn't. It's a story about determination, challenge, love and heartache. It is the story of an American woman who catapulted herself from Holland, Michigan to Kabul, Afghanistan.

A maverick by nature, Rodriguez came to Afghanistan in 2002, with an American non-governmental organization (NGO) trained in emergencies. Also gregarious by nature, Rodriguez very early on turned her attention to befriending Afghans who spoke some English. Her checkered background in multitasking and a rich personal life helped her in being sought after what was badly need in Kabul - hairdressing. With this, she developed a deep bond with Afghan women, who were just coming out of the tyranny of living under the Taliban. Their heart rending stories are told poignantly by Rodriguez, throughout the book.

I lived in Kabul for a month in 2004 and for four months in 2006. I also went o Rodriguez's beauty parlour, Oasis, in April 2006, with a friend. It took us forever to find it, as houses have no names or numbers in Kabul (security reasons). I called her four times on her cell phone to get to the right place. I waited while my friend got a haircut, was served tea, and got a chance to observe my surroundings. She had a presence and charisma that was hard to miss. Her energy was infectious. When Rodriguez took a cigarette break, she told us parts of her story, all in the book.

I first read about The Kabul Beauty School in an opinion piece posted in the Kabul Guide e-list I subscribe to, a few months ago. It talked about how some people that worked with Rodriguez in starting the Beauty School felt they did not get the credit they deserved in the book. And, that in the beginning of the book (enjoyable and shocking to me) is a piece about Rodriguez helping an Afghan bride fake her virginity on her wedding night by providing her with a blood stained handkerchief. Shouldn't this be the mother's role, questioned the author of the article? I smiled as I read this.

There were so many roles for women (just as there are for men) in Afghanistan that it could get tiring. But, there are more expectations and restrictions when it comes to women. In most traditional societies in transition to modernity, these roles are shifting. Yet, both Afghans and non Afghans have a hard time with this. What to cling to, what to let go? What to support, what to oppose?

However, Rodriguez had little patience with all this questioning. With a fierce determination she dealt with men and women, ministries, bureaucracies, hoodlums, louts, children and older people. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and was not afraid to show her emotions - be it anger, frustration, love or appreciation. She was certainly not a coward.
She did some pretty unconventional things. Most of all, she married an Afghan, and became his second wife. The first wife, with her seven children, lived in Saudi Arabia. He supported her in many things and said no when he couldn't help her. While Rodriguez did a lot to blend in, she also held on dearly to what she believed in, from her background and upbringing.

Rodriguez weaves the book around her own story and those of the women she comes across in Afghanistan. Choosing to focus on setting up a beauty school, she opted to work with women most of the time. She loved them, got cross with them, and yelled at them. She cried with them, danced with them and got involved in their most intimate stories - from violence to sex.

Raised in a country where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are guaranteed in the constitution, Rodriguez was often outraged about what she discovered and experienced in Afghanistan. This is understandable. But, slowly she learned and adapted, often at a high cost to herself and others around her. However, that is the nature of life and work as an expatriate in Afghanistan or any other post conflict country. I myself made some mistakes in dealing with the Afghans I worked and interacted with. I too experienced all the emotions Rodriguez did.

Rodriguez ends her book in May 2006, just after riots and curfews in Kabul. I was in Kabul at that time. The women who have studied and graduated from her beauty school have gone their various paths - some to new lives and others back to the old ones (but as changed and economically independent persons, with a skill). Rodriguez's experience in Afghanistan transformed her life and the women around her. Her book is deeply personal and gives a pretty accurate picture of what goes on in today's Afghanistan.

There are whisperings (quietly and openly) that Rodriguez has betrayed and endangered the women of the beauty school - that they could be targeted by conservative elements. Also, about her going back on her promises of getting them out of the country to safe and greener pastures. And, was she going to share the profits of her book with the women whose stories she told?

Above the whispering and questioning, the truth is that the reality of Afghan woman can be changed by themselves -with some help from the Debbie Rodriguez' of the world. Just like development aid and expatriate technical assistance and expertise, it is only a helping hand to the Afghans. And, all this will take time. Decades of oppression from inside and outside Afghanistan, have left a deep impression on Afghan women and men, in separate ways. They suffered collectively and differently, each to their own, in their own way. I too, heard many of these stories. A great need in Afghanistan today is individual and collective healing. Rodriguez realised this and tried to do something about, in the way she knew best.

Rodriguez offered freedom and friendship, within the confines of Afghan society. More than that she could not do, and no outsider can. The book rings true, reads well, and is highly descriptive of a country and people Rodriguez was privileged to be part of. And, that, no one can take away from her. Just like no one can take away from the Afghan women what they got from Rodriquez.

Has Life for Afghani Women Improved Because of Rodriguez?
I have mixed feelings about this book. It's easy to read and certainly provides an interesting and informative portrayal of what life is like for the women of Afghanistan. Unfortunatley, for me it dragged on in the end, and I started counting pages wondering when it would be over. There is one heartbreaking and shocking story after the next, and too many "characters" to wrap one's mind around. This mélange of stories primarily boils down to this: Terrorizing Men and Terrorized Women. I don't believe life for Afghani women has improved because of the Kabul Beauty School, and from what I understand, because of their portrayal in this book, some of the women are in more danger now that the book is out and Rodriguez has fled.

In the end, reading Kabul Beauty School did not elicit the feelings I thought it might, which was to have met an extraordinary, selfless woman who achieved a major accomplishment. Throughout the reading, I didn't understand or appreciate the author's motivation and, as a result, found it difficult to champion her cause. It's excellent memoir or journal material, but that's where the excellence ends. Does it entertain a broad audience? Absolutely not. In addition, there's a certain lack of credibility from the merely average writing skills of the author. In the retelling of this tale, Deborah Rodriguez often comes across as victim of circumstance. She makes a series of foolish choices particularly when it comes to marriage, acts rashly, and often irreverently, probably drinks too much and smokes. (This may be harsh, but these traits, to me, have nothing to do with "beauty.") For example, it doesn't make her the least bit likeable when we learn she verbally assaults a man at an outdoor market when he follows her around and grabs her backside. Embarrassing and endangering her closest friend (and translator) in the process, the friend tells her outright that she will "never go to the market with her again." Rodriguez brings her strong, independent and liberated American woman traits with her, wears them on her sleeve, and it does not earn her respect from the people around her, or from this reader. It makes her nickname "Crazy Debbie" perfectly understandable. Also, she lets her friends arrange a marriage for her, (and granted the presence of an Afghani husband, "Sam," does help her cause in one dangerous and surprising circumstance after another), but this man already has a wife, and we soon learn, a baby on the way. It's all very bizarre.

It feels as though Rodriguez returned to Afghanistan (after her first genuine venture there to provide aid after the ousting of the Taliban) in search of an extraordinary life rather than because she wanted to be the savior of Afghani women. I'm not saying this is true (I don't know this woman), but if the purpose of this book was to tell the world who she is and why she went to Afghanistan at great personal expense to become the director of a beauty school with the hope of making life better for the women there, she has been successful. The book, published by a major house, and the movie deal also deem her "successful." As for the school and the cause? A failure. She is not, like the book jacket indicates, living in Afghanistan and still running the school. According to an article on NPR, "the subjects of her book say Rodriguez and her newfound fame have put their lives in danger. They say they've seen none of the money or help to get them out of Afghanistan that Rodriguez promised them in exchange for having their stories appear in the book." Rodriguez counters by saying the women misunderstood what she promised them.

In spite of this rather negative review, I do think Kabul Beauty School is an EXCELLENT CHOICE for book clubs as it will no doubt, provoke a very interesting and thoughtful discussion about the lives of women living in Afghanistan, and whether or not the outside world should or shouldn't have something to say or do about this culture and the emancipation of women there. I also suggest Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time.

Michele Cozzens is the author of It's Not Your Mother's Bridge Club

Reviewed by Karen Morse
Deborah Rodriquez, known by Kabul shop owners and Michigan prison inmates alike as "Miss Debbie," first came to Afghanistan in 2002 as part of a group from the Care for All Foundation, a Christian Humanitarian Organization. A hairdresser by trade, Rodriguez is deemed significantly less useful than her medically-trained compatriots and is given any number of odd jobs and a good deal of free time to explore the city. Little did she--or the relief group--realize exactly how desirable her skills might be in that war-torn city.


When the expatriate community discovers a hairdresser in their midst, Rodriguez is swamped with requests. One woman summed up the situation quite succinctly: "We have literally risked our lives for highlights. [...] Once I drove ten hours over the Khyber Pass to get my hair done in Pakistan" (39). During Taliban rule, hair salons and their feminine space were banned. In 2002 salons were only just starting to reopen, struggling without the supplies and skills needed to be truly successful.


As she begins to befriend both westerners and Afghans in Kabul, Rodriguez begins to see a niche that she can fill. She returns to Michigan hoping to find a way to open a teaching salon in Kabul. Armed with her dream and a lot of gumption she manages to get $500,000 worth of donations from Paul Mitchell and other large beauty companies. Just when Rodriguez is at a loss as to how to proceed, she discovers Mary MacMakin and her nonprofit, PARSA. Aligning herself with PARSA, she returns to Kabul in Spring 2003 as a founding faculty member of the Kabul Beauty School, eventually becoming its lead instructor and administrator.


While Rodriguez's story of an American woman helping to make a difference in the lives of Afghan women is not unique, it is both moving and powerful. KABUL BEAUTY SCHOOL is compulsively readable. A strong opening chapter illustrates both the struggles of modern Afghan women and Rodriguez's inimitable blend of brazenness and kindness, leaving readers with a desire to know more about this spunky, resourceful hairdresser and her students.


The stories of Rodriguez's students fill the pages of this memoir: the wife of a Taliban-aligned opium addict, the bride who must fake virginity, and the young girl sold by her parents to an older man, just to name a few. The author, however, is just as interesting as her students.


One of the things that sets Rodriguez apart is her ability to empathize with her students. Having suffered an abusive husband, she is attuned to the indignities--both large and small--that affect Afghan women every day. Rodriguez is dynamic and personable; more than that, she clearly loves Afghanistan and its people. As she so elegantly puts it,

"as soon as I set my foot on this soil, I knew I'd somehow managed to come home. I've been renewed by the spirit of this place and roused by its challenges" (269). While Rodriguez maintains both her personality and independence throughout the period covered in this memoir, she becomes ever more a part of the Afghan community, even allowing her friends to arrange a marriage to an Afghan businessman.


The history of the school--and Rodriguez's life in Kabul--is not without drama. The school has political and financial problems. There are cultural misunderstandings, most perpetrated by the clueless, but well-meaning Rodriguez. At the memoir's end, we learn that both the school and affiliated salon have been closed. Nevertheless, the reader is left with a sense of hope: if anyone can turn things around, it is Rodriguez.


The narrative is a bit uneven (for example, the handling of her son's stay in Afghanistan is cursory, simply tagged onto a story about one of her students). However, that is almost to be expected in a first effort and the natural charisma of the author, and the compelling tale of the school, will be enough to keep readers interested.