When Lucy Hannah decided to put together an anthology of short stories by Afghan women in 2019, it already seemed like a hugely ambitious project. Most of the authors involved had never had the opportunity to work with an editor before. One contributor submitted her story by taking photos of handwritten pages and sending them via WhatsApp. Another had previously published her work online, but not in print. “I have never come across a local publisher willing to publish a book without asking for money from the author,” she said. “And it’s impossible to find a foreign publisher who wants to read books about anything except the war.”
