How novels are helping the women of Afghanistan

For a decade, author Deborah Ellis has used fiction to tell the real stories of those whose lives have been upended by the brutal Taliban regime.

Deborah Ellis

Nov 2, 2022 – 6.07am

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″Everyone says I have too much intelligence!” That’s what 14-year-old Faranoz said to me 10 years ago in Kabul. We were sitting on the floor of a room with low ceilings, so packed with women there was no walking space between them.

It was a women’s literacy class, held in the home of a woman who was once married to a member of the Taliban. I was in Afghanistan interviewing children for a book about their post-Taliban lives, Kids of Kabul. A wood stove kept the winter chill away as we talked.