There is something profoundly defiant, almost incendiary, about Afghan women writers. When the Taliban regained control of Kabul in August 2021, images of women protesting in the streets and girls being barred from classrooms circulated around the world.
Since then, regressive laws have been introduced as part of the systemic suppression of women’s public life in Afghanistan, including banning women from speaking in public. Recently, 140 titles authored by women were blacklisted as “anti-Sharia” by the Taliban’s educational authorities.
Amid this institutionalised erasure, writing becomes an act of resistance. Recent Afghan women’s literature challenges this erasure. It is a way of reclaiming agency.
