An award-winning foreign correspondent who contributed to a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times series reveals the secret Afghan custom of disguising girls as boys to improve their prospects, discussing its political and social significance as well as the experiences of its practitioners.

A war is raging in Afghanistan as a coalition of Western forces tries to oust the Taliban by bombing the country. Parvana's father has died, and her mother, sister and brother have gone to a faraway wedding. Parvana doesn't know where they are. She just knows she has to find them. And so, masquerading as a boy, she sets out across the desolate countryside that Afghanistan has become, where she meets other children who are strays from the war. This...

"Inspired by generations of her family's unwavering belief in the power of education, Pashtana Durrani recognized her calling early in life: to educate Afghanistan's girls and young women, raised in a society where learning is forbidden. In a country devastated by war and violence, heeding that call seemed both impossible and dangerous. Pashtana founded the nonprofit LEARN and developed a program for getting educational materials directly into the...

Documentary chronicling the struggle for women's rights in Post-Taliban Afghanistan.

"All the people of Afghanistan have suffered under the rule of the Taliban, but women live especially difficult lives. They are denied basic human rights, forced to drape themselves completely and kept in seclusion.". "This book addresses the historical, religious and political factors that shape the national identity of Afghan women, thus elevating our understanding of their abuse, imprisonment and murder. Interviews with Afghan women provided by...

"The vivid, often startling memoir of a young woman shaped by two dramatically disparate worlds. Saira Shah is the English-born daughter of an Afghan aristocrat, inspired by his dazzling stories to rediscover the now lost life their forebears presided over for nine hundred years within sight of the minarets and lush gardens of Kabul and the snow-topped mountains of the Hindu Kush. Part sophisticated, sensitive Western liberal, part fearless, passionate...

Zoya's Story is a young woman's searing account of her clandestine war of resistance against the Taliban and religious fanaticism at the risk of her own life. [This story shows] a powerful testament to the ongoing battle to claim human rights for the women of Afghanistan. Though she is only twenty-three, Zoya has witnessed and endured more tragedy and terror than most people do in a lifetime. Zoya grew up during the wars that ravaged Afghanistan and...