Author: Jenny Nordberg
Published: 2014
Publisher: Crown
Number of Pages: 368
My Rating: 5
Summary from GoodReads.com:
In
Afghanistan, a culture ruled almost entirely by men, the birth of a son is
cause for celebration and the arrival of a daughter is often mourned as
misfortune. A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari
as “dressed up like a boy”) is a third kind of child – a girl temporarily
raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world. Jenny Nordberg, the
reporter who broke the story of this phenomenon for the New York Times,
constructs a powerful and moving account of those secretly living on the other
side of a deeply segregated society where women have almost no rights and
little freedom.
The Underground Girls of
Kabul is anchored by vivid characters who bring this remarkable story
to life: Azita, a female parliamentarian who sees no other choice but to turn
her fourth daughter Mehran into a boy; Zahra, the tomboy teenager who struggles
with puberty and refuses her parents’ attempts to turn her back into a girl;
Shukria, now a married mother of three after living for twenty years as a man;
and Nader, who prays with Shahed, the undercover female police officer, as they
both remain in male disguise as adults.
At
the heart of this emotional narrative is a new perspective on the extreme
sacrifices of Afghan women and girls against the violent backdrop of America’s
longest war. Divided into four parts, the book follows those born as the
unwanted sex in Afghanistan, but who live as the socially favored gender
through childhood and puberty, only to later be forced into marriage and
childbirth. The Underground Girls of Kabul charts their
dramatic life cycles, while examining our own history and the parallels to
subversive actions of people who live under oppression everywhere.
I literally just finished this book and had to
immediately begin writing the review, as I am that excited to tell everyone
about it. I keep repeating the word "wow" as I can't believe the book
I just devoured in less than a day. Do I seem a little ecstatic about this
amazing book I stumbled upon? Well, I am, as it is one of the best books I've
read this year.
The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg is
not a happy-go-lucky read by any means. In all honesty, it is almost surreal as
she interviews and talks with women currently living in Afghanistan, a country
in which it is still disgraceful and embarrassing to give birth to a daughter.
A country where many women still cover themselves from head to toe and don't go
out in public without a male escort, even though the Taliban has been out of
power since 2001. A country where, in 2014, girls are being disguised as boys
in order to gain the family respect as well as to give the girls a taste of
freedom that boys and men so freely have. You heard me right.
Jenny is an award-winning journalist who winds up
in Afghanistan researching this interesting notion she has subtly heard about
from a couple of families. Intrigued, she decides to stay around the area in
order to dig deeper and find out more about these "underground
girls".
As she researches, she meets many different women
and introduces us to their stories as well as their individual circumstances.
Some of these include having their daughter pose as a son for the family, and
others allow us to meet women who they themselves are posing or have posed as
men in order to help their families in some aspect. Whether they needed to
dress and act like boys for their family to gain respect, in order to escort
their sisters places, or to help their father with the family business, these
girls turned out to be a surprisingly common practice in which many families
participated yet chose not to speak about.
While we learn about these girls and their
families, Nordberg also discusses the customs and expectations of women in
Afghanistan and describes their woes and personal wars they are fighting on a
day-to-day basis. I was floored by her findings and how women essentially still
have no rights and are basically property to their fathers and then eventually
their husbands. It was both shocking and terrifying to hear about the types of
things women have to suffer through to this day and how despite the changing
times in other places, it seems not much is changing in Afghanistan at
all.
This book was a work of nonfiction and was a result of over five years
of research and interviews. However, it was more intriguing than any piece of
fiction and I read it faster than most other books despite the heavy subject
matter. This book will educate you and open your eyes. It will shock you and
make you emphasize. It will infuriate you and make you want to share it with
others. It will make you say, "wow". Trust me. You have to read this
book. You, too, will be entranced by the world of the underground girls of
Kabul that Jenny Nordberg so expertly exposed to us. And you won't ever be able
to forget them.
-Busy Brunette
Labels: Nonfiction, Rating 5