My Forbidden Face : Growing up under the Taliban A young woman's story

Author(s): Latifa

Biographies / Memoirs

Latifa was born into an educated middle-class Afghan family in Kabul in 1980. She dreamed of one day of becoming a journalist, she was interested in fashion, movies and friends. Her father was in the import/export business and her mother was a doctor. Then in September 1996, Taliban soldiers seized power in Kabul. From that moment, Latifa, just 16 years old became a prisoner in her own home. Her school was closed. Her mother was banned from working. The simplest and most basic freedoms - walking down the street, looking out a window - were no longer hers. She was now forced to wear a chadri. My Forbidden Face provides a poignant and highly personal account of life under the Taliban regime. With painful honesty and clarity Latifa describes the way she watched her world falling apart, in the name of a fanatical interpretation of a faith that she could not comprehend. Her voice captures a lost innocence, but also echoes her determination to live in freedom and hope. Earlier this year, Latifa and her parents escaped Afghanistan with the help of a French-based Afghan resistance group.


Product Information

* Radio reading anticipated * Latifa is doing on-going interviews and talks as she now has a visa and can travel freely

In May 2001, Latifa her parents escaped Afghanistan were brought to Europe in an operation organized by a French-based Afghan resistance group Elle Magazine. She speaks Persian and is learning English and French. Latifa is not her real name.

General Fields

  • : 9781860499616
  • : Little, Brown Book Group
  • : Virago Press Ltd
  • : 0.138
  • : November 2002
  • : 198mm X 131mm X 13mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Latifa
  • : Latifa
  • : maps
  • : maps
  • : 192
  • : 192
  • : 958.1046092
  • : 958.1046092
  • : 1
  • : 1
  • : Paperback
  • : Paperback