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Book cover of My Dear Kabul

My Dear Kabul

The extraordinary diary of an Afghan women's writing group during the fall of Kabul, as heard on R4's Book of the Week

Untold Narratives CIC

SOCIETY & SOCIAL SCIENCES
27
Coup de coeur
Coup de coeur (Asia, Aus & Oceania), by Celia
As the Taliban approached Kabul in August 2021, a women's writing group in Afghanistan came together through their online group chat to ask of news and the safety of everyone. Over the following year, they took refuge in this group and shared their daily reality after the fall of Kabul. This is their collective diary of that time. They share stories of protest, fight, resistance and solidarity through the most unimaginably difficult of times.

*Soon to be a BBC Radio 4 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

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Binding: Hardback
Publication date: 15 Aug 2024
Dimensions: 146 x 224 x 35 mm
ISBN: 9781399727983