Dear Zari, The Secret Lives of the Women of Afghanistan by Zaghuna Kargar was written in a personal and caring way of the tragic low status of women in Afghanistan. I have previously read a book by another Afghanistan born woman about woman having to take on the male role in the family when there are no boys to do that. So I had some inkling and the chapter about Bakhtawara make that traditional practice more real. There is great benefit to the family, mostly survival but the cost to the women and girls put in that role is very great. Back in the 1970s, an Afghanistani man loudly proclaimed that I should not be in college but at home with my child. That experience with him told me that change will be a very long and difficult road for Afghanistani women.

I liked the storytelling venue for this book. The most of the women in the book were not allowed to have education but they were very familiar with storytelling. Some of the stories are so sad that you must cry. These stories were aired on the Afghan’s Woman’s Hour, a BBC service, a radio show that lasted ten years. Her own story was included. I believe in what the women said, the many beatings that they had, their desire to be permitted to have education. The back breaking work and finger hurting work of the carpet makers. The opium given to babies so that they would sleep while the mother and daughters work all day long.

I enjoyed the author’s comments and her own reactions to coming back to Afghanistan. I thought her comments enriched the tales from the women. This book is both heartbreaking and inspiring. It is also amazing how courageous some women can be.

I received this book from the publisher as a win from FirstReads but that in no way influenced my thoughts or feelings in this review. ( )

Zarghuna Kargar was born in Afghanistan but moved to Pakistan and then the UK where she was employed as a radio talk show host on the BBC World programme, Afghan Women’s Hour, on which Afghan women were invited to tell their stories on air.

It was much like what Xinran did for Chinese women. Some of the stories are particularly harrowing and tell of the oppressive patriarchal world Afghan women still find themselves in. Most of the stories were touching and sometimes very hard to read because of the incredible hardship steeped on the women across the width and breadth of war torn Afghanistan and one can admire the resilience and the hope of these women, who were bold enough to come forward and share their stories in an attempt to strengthen others.

The programme became very popular amongst Afghan women who were given a voice for the first time and extended a means of support, education and encouragement for countless other listeners. Kargar’s own story is interspersed with the women’s stories and I sometimes got confused and slightly irritated that she kept writing herself into the book. This frequently led to confusion as to whose story I was reading. Notwithstanding this, I think this is an important chronicle that deserves to be read. ( )

Afghan Woman's Hour.

The author of this collection of true stories is a young woman whose roots are in Afghanistan, but whose life has been lived as a refugee in Pakistan and an immigrant in UK. This has given her a unique perspective on the lives of her fellow Afghanis. She has been able to use this inside/outside view to present Afghan Woman's Hour, a radio programme on the BBC. Although the programme is now discontinued, for many years it provided a life-line for isolated Afghani women to realise that they were not alone in their struggles. It also opened the eyes of at least a few men to the realities of life as an Afghani woman.

The twelve stories in the book are true accounts of women's lives, as recounted to Zarghuna, either directly or via her reporters, for the radio programme. The accounts include Zarghuna's own life story - even though she was an educated woman, by now living in UK, she still found herself subjected to a forced marriage. The stories emphasise the power of cultural traditions over the requirements of Islam, the latter being far more lenient on women.

Some of the stories we are familiar with by now - young girls being married off to older men, women marrying brothers-in-law after the death of their husbands and the pressure on women to bear sons. Others were more surprising - marrying off a homosexual son to protect him and the family from shame, using a daughter to settle a grievance and, possibly most horrifying of all, dosing young babies with opium so the mothers can keep working to earn an income.

There were a few chinks of hope, but they were few. Some matches were happy, occasionally parents took heed of their daughters wishes, but overall, I felt that there was little support offered between women. Mothers didn't even explain to their daughters how to use the all important white handkerchief on their wedding night. With just a little more community spirit perhaps some of this suffering could have been prevented.

I read this on Kindle, which was fine, but for the problem with referring back to previous chapters. The map at the beginning was also of little use as I could not expand it sufficiently to see it. And I wasn't aware of the Glossary at the back until I reached it.
However, it was not for these reasons that I dropped a star in my rating. I hate to say it, but these types of stories are beginning to become all too familiar, and while I certainly do not wish for any more horrors to befal these poor women, I was also beginning to feel that I'd read this book before. The format was well worn and reading one story after another was a bit awkward.
Having said that, I hope this book continues the excellent work of Afghan Woman's Hour in helping and supporting these downtrodden women. ( )