Dear Zari

March 12, 2012
Kargar, born in Afghanistan, fled the country with her family as a child during the chaos of the mujahedeen uprising against the Soviets in the 1980s. She gathered the astounding and deeply troubling stories for this book when she produced the BBC radio show, Afghan Woman’s Hour, which was broadcast throughout Afghanistan. Readers meet Nareen, who wants to marry her childhood sweetheart, and who is instead forced, at age 14, to marry a 40-year old drug addict who beats and rapes her; and Wazma, whose husband refuses to let her come home or see her child (and later marries another woman) after she loses her leg in a rocket attack in Kabul. Kargar includes the story of her own arranged marriage and how a woman divorcing her husband, even in London, can be ostracized. Though the courage of these women has inspired and educated listeners throughout Afghanistan, and the show itself has led to some progress, local traditions that deny women’s rights are pervasive, and happier stories like Mahgul’s, a widow who gained independence by starting a kite-making business, are rare.

May 1, 2012
Heartrending collection of women's life stories culled from the BBC radio show "Afghan Woman's Hour." Kargar presented and produced the show with the goal of providing women in Afghanistan a weekly program that would cut across tribal, social and economic boundaries. The author was chosen in part because she understands and speaks the country's two primary languages, Dari and Pashtu. Born in Kabul, Kargar and her family fled to Pakistan in 1994, fearing for their safety in the heat of Afghanistan's civil war. In 2001, the family claimed asylum in the U.K. In line with their homeland's traditional values, her parents arranged her marriage, at 21, to a distant relative whom Kargar did not love. As the opening chapter, this theme of an Afghan woman accepting an unwanted marriage runs throughout the book, which is rife with the tales of abuse the author heard while producing the radio show. "Regardless of illegality," she writes, "most women simply obey their family and consider that whatever happens in their lives is God's will." Each of the following chapters tells a different woman's story: a girl given away as a slave to settle a family dispute; a young woman traded to another family in exchange for a second wife for her father; a wife whose gay husband moved his male lover into their home; and women being blamed, even shunned, for failing to produce a son. These terribly sad stories served as a catalyst for change in Kargar's life, inspiring her to get divorced and make more of her own decisions. An emotional and enlightening reading experience.

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May 1, 2012
As a refugee from Afghanistan living in London, in 2005, Kargar launched the BBC's widely popular Afghan Woman's Hour, and she draws on 13 of the life stories broadcast on the air to reveal unimaginable oppression, suffering, and courage. A man gives away his 13-year-old sister in marriage to settle a gambling debt. A mother is forced to sell her baby for money to feed her other children. Chained to the loom, a wife is a slave. A 14-year-old virgin must marry a 40-year-old drug addict who rapes her. A gay husband, disgraced for his secret, is brutal to his wife. With her clear commentary throughout, Zarghuna ( Zari ) weaves in her own experience of escape from marriagehow at 21, new to Britain, she was forbidden to fall in love ( my wedding day was the most unhappy day of my life ). As she says, there are no Bollywood happy endings, and Afghans in London can sometimes be more backward than those at home. An important title sure to spark group discussion on widespread oppression of women.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)