CITY OF WIDOWS

From bestselling novelist Nadia Hashimi a gripping occasionally terrifying yet ultimately hopeful novel focusing on the women of Afghanistan in the years since the Taliban regained power In February 2020 the US began to withdraw troops from Afghanistan after nearly twenty years of occupation A whole generation of Afghan women had been born during that time women who had grown up in relative peace gone to school entered the professions even served in the army and Parliament The women of Afghanistan watched as the Taliban filled the streets again They knew everything was about to change In the bustling cosmopolitan city of Kabul women are TV newscasters shop owners doctors teachers lawyers even soldiers They include Marjan who fought with the Afghan army and will risk everything to keep her daughter Hawa safe In her earlier days Marjan was called Rahima and had lived the life of a bacha posh a girl raised as a boy until she came of age Forced into an early marriage Rahima took the name Marjan when she fled her warlord husband She s created a whole new life for herself one she will not give up easily So has Soraya who defiantly wore red lipstick as she led the army s all female combat force over the objections of her upper class family Soraya s