Embedded Files
AMPLIFY Afghan Women has had the pleasure to publish these two essays collected by one of lovely sister organisations, EmpowerHer - ran by young Afghans providing education for Afghan Women.
Published June 2025
The Girl from Kabul: A Story of Words and Wounds
The Girl from Kabul: A Story of Words and Wounds
Writer: Sadaf A
The morning call to prayer floated softly through the air, barely louder than the sound of fresh bread baking next door. It was still a little cold, but the smell of the tanur’s warm bread gave the morning a kind of comfort.
Seventeen-year-old Sahar stood in front of the mirror. She tucked her black hair under her scarf, grabbed her school bag, and went downstairs. Her mother was waiting with a cup of green tea and a gentle smile.
“Go on, my girl, don’t be late. And remember to write something again today.” Sahar smiled. “I will, Mama. A new story for Gawhar.”
Her little sister Gawhar was only eight, in second grade, and loved Sahar’s stories. Every night,She’d curl up beside her and beg, “Tell me the one about the demon and fairy again.”
Their home was small, full of books and laughter. Their father, a literature teacher, used to read them poetry after dinner. Sahar had a dream: to become a writer whose words could move the world. She wrote about love, about hope, about peace, even though in Kabul the sound of explosions was never too far away.
But something about that day felt different. A weight she couldn’t name sat heavy on her chest.Maybe it was just a feeling, or maybe it was fate whispering in her ear.
That afternoon, her father came to pick her and her sister Gawhar up from school. Her mother came too, sitting beside him in the front seat. None of them knew it would be the last time their voices would fill the car.
Sahar stared out the window as they drove through Kabul’s dusty streets. She watched people hustle for daily bread, her mind already composing a sentence she planned to write in her journal that evening.
Then...
A flash.
A sound like the end of the world.
And silence.
Not peaceful silence. But a heavy, broken kind, the kind that comes after something terrible.
She couldn’t open her eyes. The air smelled of blood and smoke. Screams echoed from far away.
Then nothing.
She woke up in a hospital bed. Blinding white lights. Bandages on her legs, around her head. Pain everywhere. Her voice wouldn’t work. Her mind didn’t understand.
For two days, she slipped in and out of sleep, whispering for her mother.
On the third day, a nurse with wet eyes came and sat beside her. Her voice shook.
“Sahar jaan... I’m so sorry. Your family... they’re gone.”
The world stopped.
No tears came. Just emptiness. Her chest felt hollow. She wasn’t even sure she was alive. What was the point?
Alone in the hospital, time slowed. The physical pain faded, but the loneliness never did. Each night, she screamed in her dreams. Each morning, she wished it had all been just a nightmare.
It wasn’t.
Kabul became a prison. She saw her family everywhere, but when she turned around, no one was there. Her body survived, but her heart felt like it never would. She depressed.
Months later, with the help of an international organization, she left Afghanistan.
When the plane lifted off, she looked out the window at the city glowing in the sunset. She whispered:
“Goodbye... my home.”
“Goodbye... my home.”
In Germany, the refugee camp was cold and gray. The language was strange. No one wanted to hear her stories anymore. But every night, she opened the same notebook she had brought from Kabul. And she wrote
She wrote through tears. She wrote memories, dreams, pain, voices. Her mother’s laugh. Her father’s poetry. Gawhar’s tiny hands.
At least while she was writing, she could breathe.
Some volunteer teachers noticed her talent. One said, “Translate your stories into English. Let the world read them.”
She tried. The first sentences were awkward. Simple words, shaky grammar. But they were hers.
She started posting online. Little by little, people read them. People replied. “Your story moved me.” “I cried.” “Thank you.”
And then one day, an email.
“We read your writing. We’d love to publish your story as a book.”
She blinked. Read it again. She wanted to run and tell someone, but there was no one.
She just looked at the ceiling and whispered,
“Mather jan... I’m writing. Just like you wanted.”
The book was titled “Life Through the Eyes of a Kabul Girl.” It became a bestseller in Germany. Then France. Then Canada, Sweden, and the U.S. People connected with her pain and her strength. She was invited to schools to speak. To libraries. On TV.
People asked, “How did you survive?” She smiled and answered simply, “By writing.”
But success didn’t fill the space left behind. Awards couldn’t hug her. Fame couldn’t bring her family back. At night, she still held their picture, whispering: “Everyone says my story touched them...
But I wish you were here to read it, Padar jan.”
Still, she kept writing. For the ones without a voice. For girls still trapped in silence. For the families torn apart by war. Sahar was no longer just a survivor. She had become the voice of thousands. She had fulfilled her dream: To be a writer whose story moved the world. But at what cost?
If the Taliban Had Never Existed
If the Taliban Had Never Existed
Writer: Sakhydadi
My name is Samira. I'm eighteen years old. I live in a city where the sun rises without fear, and no explosion steals the sleep of its people. Every morning, the laughter of children echoes through the dusty streets, and girls walk to school dressed in colorful clothes, carrying their books. No one looks at them with suspicion or blame; this is Afghanistan, a place where the Taliban never existed.
Every day, I walk to school with my best friend, Zainab. Our first class is math, followed by science, and then English. At noon, we sing songs in the schoolyard, perform plays, and our teacher tells us stories from around the world. Sometimes,
I wonder if the Taliban were here, would we even be allowed to speak, laugh, or learn? My mother always says, You're lucky to live in a world we once only dreamed of. When I was younger, I didn't understand what she meant, but now I do. I know that once, girls like me weren't allowed outside their homes. Owning a book was a crime. Listening to music was a sin. Going to school was a crime that could cost a life.
My father is a writer. He always says, When fear rules, the pens fall silent. But now, in a world without the Taliban, my father writes every day about love, peace, and a future where no one is afraid. My little sister, Leila, wants to become a painter. She has painted a big orange sun smiling over the mountains of Afghanistan on her bedroom wall. She says, This sun came only when the shadows left.
Once, I found a book in the public library called Days When Girls Were Forgotten. Curious, I read it. It told the story of a girl named Farzaneh, who lived under the Taliban. She was denied schooling. At night, by candlelight, she secretly read her father's books. She dreamed of becoming a teacher, but never could. The book ended by saying Farzaneh was killed not on a battlefield, but silently at home, simply because she wanted to learn.
Reading that book brought tears to my eyes. I promised myself that as long as I live, I will be the voice for girls like Farzaneh. That's why I decided to become a writer like my father, but to tell the story of my generation.
In a world without the Taliban, Afghanistan belongs to everyone: Hazara, Tajik, Pashtun, Uzbek, all studying together in universities, working, and rebuilding the country. No faces are walls, and no languages are crimes. We live in peace, not peace forced upon us, but peace we choose. My father says, If the Taliban had never come, thousands of children would be alive today.
Sometimes, in the silence of the night, when I look at the stars, I wonder if this world is just a dream. Maybe I'm dreaming too. Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up in a world where girls are forbidden again. But then, I hear my sister's voice, reading her new poem to our mother, I hear my friends laughing on the phone, I hear my teacher saying, No one has the right to silence your dreams.
And I understand, no, this is not a dream. This is a reality that could have been, A reality that, if the Taliban never existed, could have come true long ago. Today, I'm writing my own story. Maybe some day, another girl will read it in a library and wish to build a world where cruelty is only a bitter memory, not a reality.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse