Afghanistan Where God Only Comes To Weep: A Woman's Story Of Courage, Struggle And Determination

Description

One woman’s harrowing story about life under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Shirin-Gol was just a young girl when her village was levelled by the Russians in 1979. When the men in her family joined the resistance, she fled with the other women and children to Kabul, and so began a life of day-to-day struggle in her war-torn country. A life that included a Pakistani refugee camp, a forced marriage to pay off her brother’s gambling debts, selling her body and begging for money to feed her growing family, an attempted suicide and an unsuccessful attempt to leave Afghanistan for Iran after the Taliban seized control of her country. This is the story of the fate of many women in Afghanistan. But it is also a story of a courageous and proud woman who refused to be banished to a life behind the walls of her house, who wanted an education for her children so that they could have a chance to live their lives without fear and poverty.

About the Author

Writer and maker of documentaries and films, Siba Shakib was born in Iran. She grew up in Teheran and recalls learning early in life that ‘girls have lesser value than boys’. She attended a German school in Teheran. where she received lessons in five religions and where she learnt different languages. Her higher education took place mainly in Germany where she completed her studies at the University of Heidelberg. Her work has taken her to many countries, but her attention became more and more concentrated on the war-torn Afghanistan where she worked before and during the command and terror of the Taliban. Several of her documentaries have won awards, including the moving testimonials she has made of the horrors of life in Afghanistan and the plight of Afghan women in particular.