Literature to mark a tragic anniversary for Afghanistan

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.

But it's not intentional that one anthology featuring the voices of Afghan women just hit shelves.

We Are Still Here: Afghan Women on Courage, Freedom, and the Fight to Be Heard, an essay collection that came out August 16, was begun before Kabul fell; it features the firsthand accounts of thirteen Afghan women who were empowered — and empowered other women — while the Taliban was out of power.

NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reviews We Are Still Here and previews another upcoming work: My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, a collection of Afghan women's fiction begun in 2019, released in the UK earlier this year, and set for release in the US in October.

NPR also spoke with author and journalist Ahmed Rashid, whose 2001 book Taliban became a defining text about the militants, on how the group has changed in those twenty years.

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