Contains Spoilers

3.7 Stars
One Liner: Hard-hitting and triggering

2006
The book is the story of three girls from Tali village in Afghanistan – Kowsar, Geesu, and Simin. It is inspired by true stories.
Told from multiple POVs, it showcases how the lives of innocent and not-so-innocent villagers change as power corrupts those in authority and the Taliban takes over. Most importantly, it shows how girls and women are the ones who suffer yet display courage, hope, and love.
My Thoughts:
I kept postponing the book as I knew it would be a triggering read. I wasn’t wrong. This is dark, disturbing, and brutal.
TW: child rape, child abuse, child murder, murder, domestic abuse, violence, murder.
I wish I could say this doesn’t happen.
I wish I could say the author wrote for the Western audience.
I wish I could say the author exaggerated the brutality.
I wish I could say this is just fiction.
I wish I could say I don’t believe any of it.
I cannot. I will not.
This is a hard book. There is very little hope much like the situation in present-day Afghanistan where new laws are imposed on women. Still, there are a few scenes that fill our hearts with love and make us pray the characters get what they want.
It presents the life of villagers, the threats they face, the decisions they make, the momentary lapse of judgment, the goodness that pays the price, etc. The Baluch also have minor yet important roles.
Despite the gut-wrenching situations, I couldn’t help but love the descriptions of the land, the open space, the clean air, the valley, the hills, and the beauty that slowly got tainted by human greed and lust for power.
The references to the role of the US in the country have to be mentioned. What did the big brother do? Well, we know what they didn’t do when they should have! Now, they are focusing on Bangladesh. The Nobel Peace Prize winner as prime minister is actively encouraging the genocide of Hindus. Great job, guys!
Adding a couple of quotes in the spoilers below. We know these are true but saying them aloud can be a risk to our lives.
Nupur Sharma is still staying low for quoting what’s in their scriptures. The same has been quoted by the author of this book. The Iranian government is attempting to legalize pedophilia by allowing men to marry girls as young as nine because it is acceptable under Sharia Law.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/iraq-set-to-amend-marriage-law-allowing-men-to-marry-9-year-old-girls/articleshow/115183913.cms
The only drawback is the way the book has been formatted and structured. I hope they structured the final copy properly.
I’m not sure about the translation since some sentences sound odd. With no chapter titles, there is no way to know which POV we are reading and whose. Kowsar, Simin, Geesu, and another character get first-person POVs. The others get third-person POVs. The shifts are random and without proper headers, it is hard to track the narration. Moreover, with parallel storylines, the narrative sometimes shifts between timelines.
I was surprised when the book ended the way it did. But I reread the last dialogue and found it apt. This story only pauses before it continues.

To summarize, Tali Girls is not an easy read and has many triggers but it does tell the story you need to know. If you want something hopeful or gentle, stay away from this one.
Thank you, NetGalley and Archipelago, for eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

“Tali Girls: A Novel of Afghanistan” – Siamek Herawi (translated from Persian by Sara Khalili)

“Outside of this village, there are now many who are quick to issue a fatwa proclaiming you a sinner the moment you talk of books, knowledge and progress. They will make you so loathed that people will even refuse to eat at the same dining cloth as you. Ignore them. Build your own life. Show the world who you are.”

Thanks to @netgalley and @archipelagobooks for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An early warning: this book is a tough read in terms of its content, with several harrowing scenes and tough to read passages. You have been warned.

“Tali Girls” follows the lives of three young girls growing up in the Tali valley of Afghanistan. Kowsar is a young bookworm, one who knows what she wants but also prone to suffer fits due to the intensity of her emotions. Her desire to go to school puts her on the radar of the minister of religious education, Khodadad, who is looking for another wife. Put off by the girl’s medical problems, his focus shifts to Simin, the nine-year-old daughter of a poor sheep herder. Simin is ultimately taken away to a life of servitude and hardship (and worse), as the Taliban starts to gain more influence and spread its doctrine through the nation. This then leads to Geesu, in love with Kowsar’s brother-in-law, being forced to choose between fleeing with her love or accepting a forced marriage.

To say I “enjoyed” this book might be stretching things, just because of how dark things become at points, but it’s an incredibly visceral and intense book that pulls no punches. The author is clearly furious and the corruption and persecution that exists in Afghanistan, to the point of perhaps over-romanticizing the mountainous communities and their more traditional ways, but it’s hard to have your heart broken by the hurdles of misogyny that the characters face, using all of their limited power and ingenuity to try and carve a safe space in a place that seems to be constantly against them.

If you can handle the bleakness, this is a powerful and recommended read, forceful in its views and relentless in its passion. Seek it out.

My thoughts echo those of other readers. This is a brutal read that doesn’t pull any punches. But this is nevertheless the reality of a country and people torn apart by extortion, tyranny, persecution and lawlessness. Ignorance, fear, and superstition run rife. Some courageous souls make futile attempts to break free from the shackles of misogyny and patriarchy and instil a modicum of human rights.

Its literary style may appeal more to new adult readers.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for granting this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

First of all I must stress that this is an important and relevant book that deserves a wide readership. I have a few reservations about it, but nevertheless recommend it as an insight into the life of women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Based on true stories, we follow three girls in a remote mountain village. Although relatively primitive, conditions there are improving and education is available to both boys and girls. Then comes the arrival of the Taliban and once again girls are shut out from education and any hope for a different future. It’s a vivid portrait of the cruelty, oppression, injustice and brutality women and girls have to face, as well as the oppression all sectors of society face if they in any way deviate from the party line. Multiple viewpoints are represented but the reader never fully gets inside the heads of any of the characters. The style is direct, simplistic and unsophisticated, with short sentences, and I found that prevented me from fully engaging with the girls or their parents. Here are the realities of 21st century Afghanistan, however, and the book brought that home to me with a vengeance.

Tali Girls is the kind of book I love reading that makes me realize how lucky I am to be born in the West. Kowsar and Geesu ate not as lucky; the peaceful and lush valley of Tali has turned into a nightmare since the Taliban have taken over the country and are controlling the government. They have closed the local school and children are no longer allowed to enjoy and education. Heaven forbid they learn how to think! Kowsar suffers from fainting spells in times of great stress and that saves her life as the Head of the Department of Religious Education, Khodadad, is looking at making her is third of fourth wife (she is 9, he is in his late 50s). Kowsar's health situation turns him off so he chooses Simin instead.
Kowsar are dealing of a life where they get to marry the man they live, and they live happily and freely. Unfortunately, this book takes us for a walk in a place that is so dangerous, no westerners takes a chance visiting for pure leisure. My heart broke over and over throughout the book. It was a heart read but I loved sitting with these families who, despite the atrocities, many remained so kind, good-hearted and hospitable, it gave me hope. The only part I did not enjoy was the way the story ended. Too brutal, too blunt.

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for this e-ARC in exchange of my honest review.

Siamak Herawi's novel follows the stories of four girls living in a remote valley in Afghanistan before the Taliban occupation. Kowsar is a young girl who loves reading. She is sensitive but strong-willed. Whenever she feels intense emotions, she collapses in a fit. Her teacher would like her to pursue further education but, when he introduces her to the minister of religious education, Khodadad, the minister takes a perverse interest in the girl and their secluded town. He visits, segregates the boys from the girls, forbids music, demands that they memorize only suras from the Koran, and then, after surveying the young girls, takes the nine-year-old Simin as his third wife. He is violent and ruthless, wielding his religious authority as a pretense for sexual gratification. The girls in this story face brutal hardship—rape, torture, public beating and stoning. As the Taliban seize neighboring towns and reinstitute their own capricious interpretation of Sharia law, the girls are deprived of their brief, fragile dream of an independent future. Kowsar must give up on her education and her aspirations; her neighbor, Geesu, who has fallen in love with Kowsar's brother-in-law, must choose between a forced marriage and ostracism and death. Khodadad transforms their foothill paradise into a patriarchal dystopia. Their family paddocks and gardens are requisitioned and turned into a swathe of opium farms. Their family life of humble subsistence is corrupted into an exploitative hellscape under Taliban rule.

On the whole, the novel romanticizes the provinces of Afghanistan, presenting the humble village as an uncorrupted idyll. It's a story that is perhaps especially palatable to Western readers but, to be critical, it also elides the fact that Afghanistan had a burgeoning economy. In the last decades with the suppression of the Taliban, the metropolises were expanding, with new schools, hospitals and universities. Afghanistan was, and is, a modernized nation. Herawi's novel, however, focuses on the pristine hinterlands, the sparsely populated mountains and caves, the traditional villages living off livestock and simple goods. It places its emphasis on pastoral innocence—in one chapter, two men (Kowsar's husband, Farrhad, and his host, Seydou) wander through the mountains in search of Geesu and they come across a poor shepherd. He offers them hospitality, generously sharing his dinner with them, but without telling them that his wife and children will not have food anymore. Farrhad feels painfully guilty when he realizes but Seydou is happy to be reminded that, at least in some parts of Afghanistan, there remains a spirit of noble sacrifice and communal sharing. It's a sentimental celebration of noble poverty and virtuous simplicity. But I was more interested in the book-dealer who leaves, the writer who flees to Kabul, the urban class which experienced break-neck whiplash from Western pop-culture to Taliban tyranny. There are other stories to be told about Afghanistan.

Overall, a compelling read but I take issue with its subtitle, "A story of Afghanistan", and how English readers might misconstrue/overgeneralize because of it.

Such an important book that deserves a wide audience - even if it wasn't as literarily powerful for me as I wanted. There's something a bit unsophisticated about the structure and writing, and the length works against the impact of the piece, I felt.

For all my personal reservations, I still think this glimpse into the lives of Afghani women is crucial and important for us as both part of a global response to the rolling back of women's rights everywhere and for the specific insight into that tragic country. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.