After the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and the subsequent US involvement in Afghanistan, women who lived in cities and urban centers resumed their normal social life: They went to school, returned to the workplace, and no longer needed a mahram, a male companion according to the Taliban ..
Homeira Qaderi
Homeira Qaderi is an Afghan writer, activist, and educator. She has written seven books, including a collection of short stories and her acclaimed novel, Noqra: The Daughter of Kabul River (Rozgar Publishers, 2009). She wrote eleven books for children before leaving Afghanistan, taught at Gharjistan University in Kabul, and was the editor-in-chief of Rah-e Madanyat daily. Qaderi received her PhD in Persian literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University in India. As a life-long activist and a staunch defender of women's rights, Qaderi was awarded the Malalai Medal—Afghanistan’s highest civilian honor. She was a writer in residence at the University of Iowa in 2015. Her first book in English translation, Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother’s Letter to Her Son (Harper, 2020), was excerpted by the New York Times and chosen by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best non-fiction books of 2020. Now at Radcliffe, Harvard, Qaderi is writing a novel, inspired largely by her own experiences, with a working title Tell Me Everything.