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The underground girls of Kabul : in search of a hidden resistance in Afghanistan / Jenny Nordberg.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Crown Publishers, [2014]Edition: First editionDescription: ix, 350 pages ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 0307952495 (hardcover)
  • 9780307952493 (hardcover)
Subject(s):
Contents:
Boys. The rebel mother ; The foreigner ; The chosen one ; The son maker ; The politician ; The underground girls ; The naughty one -- Youth. The tomboy ; The candidate ; The Pashtun Tea Party ; The future bride ; The sisterhood -- Men. The bodyguard ; The romantic ; The driver ; The warrior ; The refusers ; The goddess ; Zoroastrianism across the globe -- Fathers. The defeated ; The castoff ; The wife ; The father -- One of the boys.
Summary: An award-winning foreign correspondent who contributed to a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times series reveals the secret Afghan custom of disguising girls as boys to improve their prospects, discussing its political and social significance as well as the experiences of its practitioners.
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Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 305.3 N828 Available 33111007622463
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An investigative journalist uncovers a hidden custom in Afghanistan that will transform your understanding of what it means to grow up as a girl.

"An astonishingly clear picture of this resourceful, if imperfect, solution to the problem of girlhood in a society where women have few rights and overwhelming restrictions."-- The Boston Globe

In Afghanistan, a culture ruled almost entirely by men, the birth of a son is cause for celebration and the arrival of a daughter is often mourned as misfortune. A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari as "dressed up like a boy") is a third kind of child--a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world. Jenny Nordberg, the reporter who broke the story of this phenomenon for the New York Times , constructs a powerful and moving account of those secretly living on the other side of a deeply segregated society where women have almost no rights and little freedom.

The Underground Girls of Kabul is anchored by vivid characters who bring this remarkable story to life: Azita, a female parliamentarian who sees no other choice but to turn her fourth daughter Mehran into a boy; Zahra, the tomboy teenager who struggles with puberty and refuses her parents' attempts to turn her back into a girl; Shukria, now a married mother of three after living for twenty years as a man; and Nader, who prays with Shahed, the undercover female police officer, as they both remain in male disguise as adults.

At the heart of this emotional narrative is a new perspective on the extreme sacrifices of Afghan women and girls against the violent backdrop of America's longest war. Divided into four parts, the book follows those born as the unwanted sex in Afghanistan, but who live as the socially favored gender through childhood and puberty, only to later be forced into marriage and childbirth. The Underground Girls of Kabul charts their dramatic life cycles, while examining our own history and the parallels to subversive actions of people who live under oppression everywhere.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 313-336) and index.

Boys. The rebel mother ; The foreigner ; The chosen one ; The son maker ; The politician ; The underground girls ; The naughty one -- Youth. The tomboy ; The candidate ; The Pashtun Tea Party ; The future bride ; The sisterhood -- Men. The bodyguard ; The romantic ; The driver ; The warrior ; The refusers ; The goddess ; Zoroastrianism across the globe -- Fathers. The defeated ; The castoff ; The wife ; The father -- One of the boys.

An award-winning foreign correspondent who contributed to a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times series reveals the secret Afghan custom of disguising girls as boys to improve their prospects, discussing its political and social significance as well as the experiences of its practitioners.

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