An intimate look at the lives, loves, horrors, and dreams of girls and women in an Afghan mountain village under Taliban rule

A heartbreaking tragedy in the vein of The Kite Runner from a major English-speaking Afghan figure famous for his books and long career in politics

Siamak Herawi brings Afghan women centerstage and takes us deep into the heart of his motherland to witness the reality of their lives under the Taliban’s most extreme interpretation of Islam. Based on true stories, the result is a sobering and harrowing tale that relates the current ethos of a country under occupation by one power or another for more than half a century.

Told in a direct, conversational prose, this chorus of voices offers us a vivid picture of the endless cycle of the suffering of girls and women in the grip of the Taliban authorities, of the imbalance of power and opportunity.

The central figures illuminate the power of love, friendship, and generosity in the face of poverty and oppression. Their experiences and dilemmas have a visceral power and we become deeply attached to Kowsar, Geesu, and Simin. These are testaments of resilience, hope, courage, and visceral fear, of doors of opportunity opening just a crack that offer a way out.

In Sara Khalili’s vibrant and nuanced translation from the Persian, Tali Girls tears down the curtain and exposes the treacherous realities of what women are up against in modern-day, war-torn Afghanistan.

Siamak Herawi was born in Herat province, Afghanistan, in 1968. He studied at Kabul University and Stavropol University in Moscow. Returning to Afghanistan in 1991, Herawi started his career as a reporter and later joined Anis Newspaper as its editor in chief. In 2003 he was appointed deputy spokesperson to President Hamid Kharzai, a position he held until he was transferred in 2012 to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as deputy spokesperson. A year later, he was appointed chargés d'affaires of the Embassy of Afghanistan in London. Herawi resigned from his position in 2014 when Ashraf Ghani was elected president and remained in the UK. Despite his long career in politics, Siamak Herawi is most recognised as one of Afghanistan’s most prolific writers whose body of work includes twelve novels.

Translator Sara Khalili is an editor and translator of contemporary Iranian literature. Her many translations include Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour.