Every Thursday, five young women in Afghanistan gather in secret for a reading circle they call 'women with books and imagination'. Banned from education by the Taliban, they meet at different homes to avoid detection and discuss works by authors such as George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway and Abbas Maroufi.
One member, Parwana, 21, who was a child when girls were pulled out of school, joins by phone from a different district. She sometimes climbs a hill to get a strong enough internet connection to download the books. 'When they banned us from attending school, I lost all hope,' she said. 'I decided to do something myself … and now I have this reading circle.'
The group's coordinator, Darya, 25, was in her third year of a language and literature degree when universities were closed to women. 'Reading has always been an integral part of my life,' she said. 'When I read, I feel as if I’m in another world … books have given colour to my life.'
This week, the group discussed 'The Year of Turmoil' by Iranian writer Abbas Maroufi, a novel about a woman trapped in an oppressive marriage. Parwana identified with the protagonist: 'She represents women who have suffered, who have remained trapped, and who are oppressed by family and society in today’s Afghanistan.'
Unicef estimates that more than 2 million women and girls have been deprived of schooling in the four years since the ban was introduced, warning of catastrophic consequences for the country. The reading circle aims to resist through learning, with member Roya explaining, 'Most women who accept oppression do so because they are unaware of their rights.'
