Cover of Behind the Burqa: Our Life in Afghanistan and How We Escaped to Freedom

Behind the Burqa: Our Life in Afghanistan and How We Escaped to Freedom

Advance Praise for Behind the Burqa

"Whenever and wherever adults make war, children die and women are subjected to fear and humiliation. This is true of Afghanistan too. Read this harrowing book. The tragic yet heroic tale of two women is told with great simplicity. They will haunt you."

Read more

-Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

"The stories of Sulima and Hala achingly articulate the twin and enduring legacies of misogyny and violence. A critical historical document, Behind the Burqa ultimately reveals the unbreakable strength of Afghan women."

-Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues

Founder and Artistic Director, V-Day

"Behind the Burqa provides important information about conditions in Afghanistan, as well as the plight of asylum-seekers in the United States. I highly recommend this book to all people who are concerned about human rights, both at home and abroad."

-Senator Sam Brownback, (R. Kansas)

ranking member, Immigration Subcommittee, Committee on the Judiciary

"This book is a gripping reading experience, and it also offers important suggestions for those who would like to participate in making our asylum politics more humane."

-Eleanor Acer, Director, Asylum Program, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights

"This book shows the injustices suffered by innocent women seeking asylum in the U. S. and the power of religious faith to provide hope and courage even in prison."

-Fauziya Kassindja, author of Do They Hear You When You Cry

"Sulima and Hala epitomize the worldwide struggle of women for equality and justice. Their story is gripping and illuminating."

-Jessica Neuwirth, President of Equality Now

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 288 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Behind the Burqa: Our Life in Afghanistan and How We Escaped to Freedom? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Behind the Burqa: Our Life in Afghanistan and How We Escaped to Freedom. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan Shares Afghanistan, memoir, Middle East
  2. Afghanistan, Where God Only Comes To Weep Shares Afghanistan, memoir, Middle East
  3. My Forbidden Face: Growing Up Under the Taliban: A Young Woman's Story Shares memoir, Afghanistan, Middle East
  4. Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan Shares Afghanistan, Middle East, nonfiction

“People who read Behind the Burqa: Our Life in Afghanistan and How We Escaped to Freedom tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom
  2. Veiled Courage: Inside the Afghan Women's Resistance
  3. Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan
  4. Finding Angela Shelton

“If you want more of the same (biography about travel), start with these.”

  1. A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear
  2. Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guesthouse: The True Story of a Woman Who Risked Everything to Bring Hope to Afghanistan
  3. For the Love of a Son: One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child
  4. The Patience Stone

“If it was the Afghanistan that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Storyteller's Daughter: One Woman's Return to Her Lost Homeland
  2. Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager's Story
  3. A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story
  4. Under an Afghan Sky: A Memoir of Captivity

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The Unfinished Revolution: Voices from the Global Fight for Women's Rights
  2. Promises to Keep
  3. Untouchables: My Family's Triumphant Journey Out of the Caste System in Modern India
  4. A Brief History of Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice