God reserves few destinies more challenging than being raised a girl in Afghanistan. When the girl becomes a mother, the challenges multiply. Homeira Qaderi describes soldiers pointing guns at her pregnant belly, fearful that there is a bomb rather than a baby concealed there. Dancing in the Mosque (4th Estate, £16.99; Tablet price £15.29) is her letter to a son she was forced to leave behind, having battled the misogyny of Afghan law to teach girls to read and women to claim some basic human rights. The vividness of Qaderi’s memory, as she walks through a devastated townscape to give birth and to raise a child amid Herodian oppression and violence, is devastating.
21 January 2021, The Tablet
Speed reading: Brian Morton is moved by memoirs
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