Companion’ a story about an older woman whose children live abroad struck me because it reminded me of my own mother. She is regularly deployed to present special news coverage from the field and report across the BBC's domestic and global outlets. The introduction and afterword have added more value to this book through which one can get an idea about the current scenario in Afghanistan and also the pain taken by the authors and other people involved with this book to complete the project. This is an incredibly compelling set of vignettes of life in Afghanistan, written by 18 Afghan women in Dari and Pashto before the 2021 Taliban takeover of Kabul and translated into English. Zubair Popalzai), a woman who manages to escape her war-torn homeland and move to America, attributes her sleeplessness to her favorite pillow she has left behind and vows to carry it back with her on her next visit.

The amount of reflecting I’ve done since finishing this book in insane, I know I am lucky enough to live a privileged life, but I really didn’t know just how bad some people’s lives could be. A place where they are not allowed to express themselves or pursue their dreams and where the other half silences half of the population. We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. RATING: I’m giving this book five stars because I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to give it any less. Despite their brevity, the stories convey so much - about life, hardship, sacrifice, strength, endurance and triumph.My thanks to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the DRC of “My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women”. NOT SO GOOD BITS: Firstly, most of the stories are very short and, given the sheer volume, I struggled to sink my teeth into some of them.

Strongly recommended to anyone looking for a powerful OwnVoices work, giving voice to women who are rarely given a voice. My Pillow's Journey of Eleven Thousand, Eight Hundred and Seventy Six Kilometres" by Farangis Elyassi which used a simple item to show how displaced she felt.Work on this anthology began before the US withdrawl and the retaking of the country by the Taliban. It is accepted by you that Daunt Books has no control over additional charges in relation to customs clearance. My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird is a landmark collection: the first anthology of short fiction by Afghan women.

Women once again have been forced to remain absent from mainstream life, stripped of their hard won rights, which is such a depressingly regressive step for so many.However, I'd like to make it abundantly clear that this is not a collection to be read out of pity or duty. There were a couple of moments where I had to stop reading just to process, which goes to show how potent some of these short stories can be.