My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women

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In “My Pillow’s Journey of Eleven Thousand, Eight Hundred and Seventy-Six Kilometres” by Farangis Elyassi, (translated from the Dari by Dr. It is impossible to read this book and not be affected by it – I was in turn saddened, enraged and incredibly moved by these stories and needed to take breaks in between. Entering this world challenges the reader and demands a response beyond "I'm so lucky that's not me. It represents the power of fiction and the role of the artist to stand up to authority in the hope of making life better. Skaitydama tuos trumpučius, gal ir ne super literatūrinius "/, bet tikrai širdį draskančius apsakymus vis pagalvojau - damn, aš visiškai nebeseku žinių apie tai kas dabar dedasi Afganistane.

Women and girls experience abuse and hardship daily with little to look forward to - life, and simply living is difficult.

The stories I want to re-visit and discuss with others because they are so shocking, but also quite beautifully written and the descriptions of food and landscape paints an intriguing country that in other instances one might want to visit. Marie Bamyani, whose story The Black Crow of Winter is about a mother struggling to provide for her family, is passionate that the voices of Afghan women get heard. One contributor submitted her story by taking photos of handwritten pages and sending them via WhatsApp. This book has taught me to cherish some things I have (like freedom, right to speech and living in a peaceful environment), which for Afghans is a far-off dream.

It's not one to really "race" through as I needed to think about each story and process the emotions I felt.Some are more like an episode, offering a little glimpse into a day or week of the central character. So I think reading a couple stories at a time is probably the way to go and I will definitely take more time with it when I come to rereading this. There are some beautiful moments, but there is an awful lot of really harsh reality as experienced by women in Afghanistan that if nothing else will make you grateful for how much more freedom we have in the UK. Yet they all encompass a central theme of resilience and love, which is more poignant now than ever.

My Pen is the Wing of a Bird is an anthology of short fiction written by Aghan women and painstakingly translated into English, not only for the benefit of English-speaking audiences, but out of necessity; the current political climate in Afghanistan prevents these women from being published, and therefore from finding a readership, in their own country. The pandemic and the resumption of Taliban rule have made the publication of My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird little short of a miracle . Negeen Kargar), A father who opposed his daughter’s education in favor of her getting married relents after his daughter adamantly decides to go back to school after it is bombed and many of her friends have perished. Thank god, I said to myself, that the sun is not someone's property, otherwise I'd have to pay rent for that as well.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.