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Author: Untold Narratives CIC

Afghanistan

Published on 15 August 2024 by Hodder & Stoughton (Coronet Books) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 384 pages
146 x 224 x 35 | 490g

The incredible and courageous collective diary of an Afghan women’s writing group during the Fall of Kabul in August 2021 ‘An intimate, courageous chronicle of life as it unfolds under Taliban rule’OBSERVER, *Book of the Day*’A hugely important book’ BERNARDINE EVARISTO’A deeply moving collective memoir’LYSE DOUCETIn August 2021, as the Taliban approached the gates of Kabul,

twenty-one women writers in Afghanistan came online in their WhatsApp chat

group: they asked what news others had heard and if everyone was safe.

These women had been brought together as a writing group. They

were about to publish their first collection of short stories, while working

regular day jobs. Some were students, some newly married, one was a

grandmother: all were afraid of what was now to come. Over the next year, in

the makeshift refuge of their WhatsApp group, they shared the day-to-day

reality of life after a fall.

Publishing on the anniversary of the Fall of Kabul, this is the women’s courageous collective

diary: in it the writers watch cities transform, schools close, families

change and freedoms disappear. They share stories of chaos, protest and

flight – and of life continuing. Check-points are a daily trial; men start

behaving differently. Children can’t afford the ice-cream man’s wares;

passports are near impossible to obtain.

Together, their messages form a powerful chorus of resistance and

solidarity.

‘Its courage is momentous’ALI SMITH