The Dressmaker of Khair Khana

This true story introduces listeners to an aspect of Afghan society rarely heard about--the region's entrepreneurial women. The life of Kamila Sidiqi is a model of ingenuity, creativity, courage, and adaptability amid the harshest surroundings and brutal circumstances. Sidiqi taps her five sisters' sewing talents to create a thriving dressmaking business to support her entire family. Sarah Zimmerman's feminine clarity contrasts sharply with the grim war-torn realities, and she also captures the coarse tones of the brutal Taliban. Her voice softens as she compassionately recounts the stories of the brave sisterhood, focusing on the resilience of the women. Their triumphs may shift listeners' viewpoints on the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. A.W. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

January 10, 2011
In 2005, Lemmon went to Afghanistan on assignment for the Financial Times to write about women entrepreneurs. When she met a dressmaker named Kamila Sediqi, Lemmon (once a producer for This Week with George Stephanopolos) knew she had her story. It's an exciting, engrossing one that reads like a novel, complete with moments of tension and triumph, plus well-researched detail on daily life in Kabul under Taliban rule. When that regime descended in 1996, it brought fear, violence, and restrictions: women must stay home, may not work, and must wear the chadri—a cloak, also known as a burqa, that covers the face and body—in public. After Sediqi's parents left the city to avoid being pressed into service, or worse, by the Taliban, it fell to her to support the family. Her story is at once familiar (she came up with an idea, procured clients, hired student workers, and learned as she went) and wholly different (she couldn't go anywhere without a male escort, had to use an assumed name with customers due to the threat of being found out and punished, and could fit in work on the sewing machine only when there was electricity). It's a fascinating story that touches on family, gender, business, and politics and offers inspiration through the resourceful, determined woman at its heart.

October 15, 2010

As the Taliban took over Kabul and women could no longer work or attend school, the economy shuddered to a halt. To support her family, Kamela Sediqi began making clothes at home--and soon built up a business that now sustains 100 neighborhood women. She's even on LinkedIn. Compared (not surprisingly) to Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea and even more akin to William Kamkwamba's The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, this sounds like heartfelt inspiration. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2011

Journalist Lemmon (deputy director, Women & Foreign Policy Prog., Council on Foreign Relations) tells the moving story of Kamila Sidiqi, a young woman in Kabul, Afghanistan, who, out of desperation, started a successful dressmaking business to support her family and other destitute women during the repressive Taliban regime. Lemmon encountered Kamila in 2005 when Lemmon was on assignment for the Financial Times. Through Kamila's story, Lemmon captures the lives of women after the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 1996. She rejects characterizing Afghan women as victims of war and instead demonstrates how women, particularly entrepreneurial women, actively resisted gender oppression. Kamila's story ends on a positive note with the fall of the Taliban regime after the American presence in Afghanistan; her impressive yet furtive enterprise later received recognition from such figures as Condoleezza Rice. Given the continued conflict in Afghanistan under foreign occupation, curious readers may want to know more about the current struggles of Afghan women. VERDICT A revealing work that contributes to the literature on women under Afghanistan's Taliban regime.--Karen Okamoto, John Jay Coll. Lib., New York

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2010

The story of a young Afghan woman who outwitted the Taliban to become a successful entrepreneur.

At age 19, Kamela Sediqi started a tailoring business in Kabul that saved her family and possibly hundreds of women from starvation. In 1996, the Taliban seized control of the Afghan government and "began reshaping the cosmopolitan capital according to their utopian vision of seventh-century Islam." Radical separation of the sexes became the norm, with public lives and spaces reserved for men only. All women—including educated professionals—were forced into home sequestration. The new order wreaked economic havoc and forced political dissidents, including Kamela's father, to flee for their lives. Desperate to support her family, Kamela, who had trained to become a teacher, took advantage of a loophole in Taliban rules that permitted women to work at home and began sewing clothes for local stores. Though she endured threats of harassment, beating and imprisonment by armed guards, Kamela's business thrived, to the point where the unlikely entrepreneur was able to employ her five sisters. As word of her work spread, so did her client list. Soon, "the dressmaker of Khair Khana" was offering both jobs and training to neighborhood women in dire circumstances. Hardship derailed Kamela's plans to teach high school but allowed her to discover her true calling—helping her people help themselves. Former ABC News producer Lemmon's account is the product of several years of in-depth interviewing, and the author convincingly evokes the atmosphere of Taliban-era Kabul. The author also pays scrupulous attention to the details of character development and narrative momentum. Both are well-delineated, though Kamela and her family members (especially the female ones) at times seem drawn to fit more of a heroic—rather than human—mold. However, the moving story will allow readers to overlook such a minor flaw. As Lemmon writes, women in war zones like Afghanistan are more often depicted as "victims of war who deserve our sympathy rather than as resilient survivors who demand our respect. I was determined to change this." Mission accomplished.

A memorable, inspiring story of courageous community-building.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 1, 2011
Most books that cover womens lives in Afghanistan under the Taliban recount suffering and loss, but journalist Lemmon wanted to shed light on the untold stories of enterprising women who found ways to take care of themselves and their families during the five oppressive years the Taliban was in power. Kamila Sidiqis hopes of using her teaching degree were dashed when the Taliban overtook Kabul and its suburbs. As the oldest unmarried daughter, Kamila knew it was up to her to find a way to provide for her family. Realizing women still need clothing to wear under their chadris, Kamila asked her older sister to teach her and her younger sisters to sew. With her younger brother in tow, Kamila approached local merchants and found buyers for the clothing she and her sisters made, until she found herself with a plethora of orders and a number of neighborhood women who wanted to take part in the business. An inspiring, uplifting story about one womans extraordinary courage and ingenuity in the face of adversity.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)