My Dear Kabul: Twenty-one Afghan women, twelve months, one group chat

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My dear Kabul give me your hand, put your head on my shoulder and don't be afraid, don't think you are alone, we are here for you.

In August 2021 a women's creative writing group in Afghanistan shared news of political turmoil and the Fall of Kabul. These women were in the process of publishing a short-story collection when their world was turned upside down by the Taliban. In staying connected via WhatsApp messages, they established a lifeline; a vital space to keep their creativity alive, support each other and bear witness to the events unfolding around them.

My Dear Kabul is their story, and a collective diary of a year living under the Taliban. As they watched cities fall, schools close, families change and freedoms disappear, they shared stories of chaos, protest and flight. As a group, they reflected on the scope of female experience: mothers and doctors, students and teachers, those who had lived under the Taliban, and those who couldn't imagine it. In sharing their stories, they created a place of community and strength in the face of terror.

Author Bio

Untold is a writer development programme for marginalised writers in areas of conflict and post-conflict. Afghanistan has millions of Pashto and Dari speakers with little or no local support for creative writing, literary translation, or literary editing. Support for writers has been hampered by cultural norms, free expression issues, chronic instability, and internal displacement. Untold has been working one-to-one with women on their short stories, with English-speaking literary editors and translators working with the writers to realise the potential of their stories for publication both locally and globally in translation