A few months ago I was invited to like a Facebook page called Memes Feministas Islámicos. The page targets mostly Spanish speakers, and it claims to be countering Muslim patriarchies online. Their “About us” page reads: “Nos sumamos a la tarea de contrarrestar el machismo en el cyber espacio y al igual que nuestras compañeras […]

Like Khaled Hosseini’s two earlier novels, The Kite Runner (2003) and A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007), which spent a combined total of 171 weeks on the bestseller list, his latest novel, And the Mountains Echoed has received wide acclaim, and has been described as “heartbreaking,” “emotionally resonant,” and the writer’s “most ambitious work yet.” The […]

 “When I sleep, I dream like a Hazara” (The Honey Thief, p. 6). The Honey Thief is a successful collaboration between authors Najaf Mazari and Robert Hillman, featuring a host of interesting characters and places from Mazari’s native Afghanistan.  Winner of the 2005 Australian National Biography Award, Hillman came on board initially to  co-author Mazari’s […]

When I was a teenager, my dad and I used to enjoy looking at the graffiti painted all over Mexico City. While my dad was a critic of the graffiti that was just scribbles and swear words and obscene signs, we enjoyed those graffitos that were not only truly artistic but also political. Graffiti was, […]

After the almost 12-year American occupation, there has been a lot of speculation on the future of Afghanistan. While some have deemed the war “unwinnable”, others have talked about responsibility specifically in terms of Afghan women. Upon the close withdrawal of American forces (if they do not delay it again), Canadian and American media articles […]

“When someone wants to be an artist, because they cannot let what’s going on around them stay the same, achieving fame in the world of art becomes unimportant.” –Alma Suljevic I am a lover of all art forms, including cinema; the Women Make Movies initiative, and the kind of varied and thought-provoking cinema they help […]

To people of a certain age, the word Supergran might bring to mind a Scottish superhero from the 80’s, but this week a headline about an Afghan “supergran” was a world away from Saturday afternoon TV. The article tells us that Zarifah Qazizadah is Afghanistan’s only female village chief; in fact, she’s only the second […]

Around 4,000 academics, scholars and activists gathered from March 16-18th at Pace University’s annual Left Forum conference. As a recent Occupy activist, I was ecstatic to come across a conference that centers on issues of capitalism and imperialism, along with panels that focus on the importance of feminist discourse to envision an alternative world. The […]

The Favored Daughter—One woman’s fight to lead Afghanistan into the Future, by Fawzia Koofi with Nadene Ghouri, tells the important story of a courageous Afghani woman, Fawzia Koofi.  The biography starts near the time of her birth up to her election and current role Afghanistan’s first female parliament speaker, with the country’s political history always […]

In October and November of this year, PBS aired a five part series, “Women, War & Peace,” in the United States. The series website explains: “Women, War & Peace spotlights the stories of women in conflict zones from Bosnia to Afghanistan and Colombia to Liberia, placing women at the center of an urgent dialogue about […]