Oslo: The Norwegian author of "The
Bookseller of Kabul" has been ordered to pay damages to the
wife of the real-life bookseller on which it was based, an
Oslo newspaper reported on Saturday.
Oslo district court ordered journalist Aasne Seierstad
to pay USD 20,200 to Suraia Rais for violation of privacy,
the Dagbladet newspaper said in its online edition.
Norwegian publisher Cappelen Damm, which originally
released the book in 2002, a year before it came out in
English and became an international bestseller, was also
ordered to pay 125,000 kroner in damages to Rais.
Written in the style of a novel, "The Bookseller of
Kabul" is an account of Seierstad`s time living with the Rais
family in Kabul shortly after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
"The information (in the book) about Rais`s thoughts
and feelings is sensitive," the Oslo district court ruled,
according to Dagbladet`s report.
"They are attributed to her as true, and neither
Seierstad nor Cappelen Damm can be considered to have acted in
good faith to ensure they were correct and accurate."
PTI
