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Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor's fellow, La Trobe University

From future lawyer to betrothed to a Taliban fighter: August in Kabul shows how life changed overnight for so many in Afghanistan

Taliban Ashraf Ghani United States Kabul Afghanistan NATO Donald Trump AlQaeda
Taliban fighters ride through the streets of Kabul on a captured police humvee hours after president Ashraf Ghani fled the Afhgan capital on 15 August 2021. Andrew Quilty

On page 79 of August in Kabul, Andrew Quilty introduces us to Nadia Amini, a 19-year-old student of Tajik descent who attends a madrassa, or religious school, in the Afghan capital. She is completing her third-semester exams with ambitions to become a lawyer.

None of that came to pass as the Taliban swept into Kabul in mid-August, 2021. In the process, Nadia’s own life disintegrated.

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