My Dear Kabul

By: Untold Narratives CIC

Narrated by: Afsaneh Dehrouyeh

* BBC Radio 4 's Book of the Week*

'A real-time, moving and intimate portrait of a year living under the Taliban, communicated via clandestine WhatsApp messages' DUA LIPA'S SERVICE95

'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 DOUCET

In 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©2024 Untold Narratives CIC (P)2024 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

So much suffering and yet so much hope.

What an amazing account of resilience, courage and the power of the spirit. Hard to imagine and bear for the soul as a woman.

The Performer’s Accent

She sounds more Persian, she pronounces the words with Irani accent, it doesn’t sound like Afghan Farsi. I bought the book but I can’t enjoy it when she is pronounced names very different from how we speak back home. It sounds Irani Persian.