The 2026 winner of The Women's Prize for Non-Fiction

Lyse Doucet first checked into the luxury Inter-Continental Kabul on Christmas Eve 1988. In the decades since, she has witnessed a Soviet evacuation, a devastating civil war, the US invasion, and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban, all from within its increasingly battered walls. The Inter-Con has never closed its doors.

Now, she weaves together the experiences of the Afghans who have kept the hotel running to craft a richly immersive history of their country. Through intimate portraits of Afghan life, the story of a hotel becomes the story of a people.