In the foothills of the Himalayas, Aisha lives with her mother Noorjahan in the outskirts of a community that shuns them both. Aisha’s father left them and Noorjahan has stressed how important it is for her daughter to get an education. But when Noorjahan gets ill, Aisha is left alone and finds her dreams evaporate and finds her life on a different trajectory.

This novel tells Aisha’s story starting when she first goes to school and backtracks to her mother’s past and goes through to her future as a mother and a grandmother, chronicling her struggles and her joys.

I love these types of novels that span decades and are set in other countries and this book fit the bill! This novel was heartbreaking and hopeful and I am so glad that I was given the opportunity to read this.

Thank you to @simonbooks for an early digital copy of this book

Tara Dorabji’s “Call Her Freedom” is a beautifully written and emotional family saga set in the foothills of the Himalayas. It follows Aisha’s journey through love, loss, and survival as she navigates life under military occupation. Spanning from 1969 to 2022, the novel explores generational trauma, resilience, and the sacrifices made to hold onto culture and family.

Dorabji’s writing is vivid and immersive, bringing the lush landscapes of Poshkarbal to life while telling a deeply personal yet universally powerful story. Aisha is a strong, complex protagonist, facing the weight of tradition, marriage, and war while making heartbreaking choices to protect her loved ones. The novel doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities of occupation—violence, displacement, and loss—but balances them with moments of tenderness and hope.

At times, the story is heavy with tragedy, and some themes are spelled out a bit too directly. But the novel’s emotional depth and rich cultural backdrop make it a compelling read. “Call Her Freedom” is both an intimate look at one woman’s life and a broader reflection on colonialism and resistance. A powerful, thought-provoking book for anyone who loves historical fiction and stories of survival.

This is a very well written story of a families life from 1969 to 2022 and all of the things that happened to them as each generation grew up mainly in Trauma of what was happening in their country.
The setting was set at the foothills of the Himalayas, in a picturesque mountain village full of cherry and apple orchards and a river nearby. This is where Aisha and her mother Noorjahan lived on the outskirts of town.
Aisha's father left them when she was young, and to makes ends meet her mother who was a healer and midwife , was often called to help the people of the village, and villages near by. She taught her daughter Aisha her gifts, as well,
Noorjahan also cared for a poppy field left to her by her parents which gave them a descent income.
This story was wonderful to read, as the characters were all so vibrant, but the story also has a lot of tragedy as the people are close to being occupied and the military just outside of town, became an enemy in its own.
As usual I am not going to put out a lot of the story as I feel one must read it themselves and immerse themselves into this well written story.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for a copy of this book.

I received a free copy of call her freedom by :Tara Dorabji from net gallery for review, I receive no compensation whatsoever for this review and all opinions and thoughts written here are my own.


just finished reading. Call her freedom by: Tara Dorabji this is a compelling work of fiction. That artfully showcases generational trauma and its effects as well as the effects of war on the human psyche as well as family relations while nestling within it and deeply held cultural beliefs and family. Love that people of any age or culture cling to in times of desperate trial. I found this novel incredibly moving and I thought that the way in which the author told the story was sensitive but also did not pull any punches as far as the realities of war, reminding us all to think twice and carefully before charging headlong into something that we feel passionate about without thoroughly considering the positive or negative effects.. I thoroughly appreciate the way that Tara Dorabji told the truth about some things that happen in war and in life that some storytellers tend to gloss over.
I found this story. Riveting loving, passionate and genuine. Thank you so much! Tara Dorabji for sharing your first story in this way and allowing me to review it, I hope to be able to review more of your work in the future

This book is going to be a classic. It is poignant, deep, and inspires the reader to turn each page. I would recommend this book to anyone.

“Call Her Freedom” by Tara Dorabji is one of those books that is heartbreaking, heartfelt, and utterly compelling. It is a testament as to why fiction, as a means for creating empathy and understanding of the world outside our immediate sphere, is so important. It is easy for us to be wrapped up in our own petty problems, many of which are so minor. In this family saga, we follow the lives of a family living in the foothills of the Himalayas from 1969 to present day. Aisha is raised by her mother, who does everything she can to ensure that Aisha will receive an education to improve her lot in life. Aisha is the best student in her village school, but circumstances change and she marries the son of her teacher. He goes on to college instead. They raise their family during great political and social turmoil, trying to stay away the violence caused by drug trafficking and the political violence left behind from colonial occupation and military occupation of opposing regimes. This book is sometimes difficult to read because it shows how ordinary people’s lives get torn apart through the greed and cruelty of others. But it also shows how love and family can sometimes be stronger.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this novel. My opinions are my own.

Dorabji’s generational saga calls attention to the power of familial love and loyalty, and how it endures through life in occupied territory, where changing military and political positions make daily living a constant challenge. The fictional town of Poshkarbal sits on a border within disputed territory. In 1969, Noorjahan sends her young daughter, Aisha, to school, where she excels with her high marks, outshining all her peer students. But Aisha’s father left long ago, so he’s not at the school to receive her grades, as are all the other fathers who stand proudly at the back of the classroom. Noorjahan, a healer and midwife, is fearful for Aisha’s long-term security. She tasks her lover, Murad, with taking care of Aisha and her inheritance—the land they survive on. In further preparation for her own death, Noorjahan instructs Aisha how to continue the secret enterprise which has thus far paid for her schooling. When Aisha is eighteen, Murad arranges with his wife that she should marry their son, Alim, and give up her education.

This is not a historical novel in the usual sense. It begins in the Sixties but spends very little time there. The majority of the narrative takes place in the 1980s and 1990s, present day and beyond. The author looks at how family members struggle to conduct their daily lives under duress, and how they maintain their culture and find some form of freedom in the face of occupation by enemy forces. Dorabji also addresses the cyclical nature of life-altering decisions, when Aisha’s grown son chooses his own path, reflecting their history. This will interest readers of novels which spotlight the harsh long-term effects of present-day colonialism and foreign occupation.

call her freedom was an excellent read. I loved the writing and it was propulsive. Great character study. I would read more from this author.

Call Her Freedom spans years, following Aisha’s life from the time she was seven. Her story makes you question what freedom truly is. Is it freedom of choice, the ability to breathe, or simply the right to be yourself?

While the book is set in a fictional place, it’s not hard to see that the author drew inspiration from Kashmir. Aisha and her mother, Noorjahan, navigate life as two women alone in a land ruled by men, militants, and military forces. Noorjahan wants her daughter to be independent, to study, and to manage her own land. But when she dies, Aisha’s circumstances shift, and she finds herself married. As her family grows, so does the turmoil in their village. What follows is a story of strength, resilience, and survival.

It’s easy to take freedom for granted. In theory, we all have it, but do we really? This book resonated deeply, especially in today’s world. Aisha and Noorjahan are strong women, but they’re still exploited by the men around them. The story doesn’t just explore personal struggles; it reflects the harsh realities of war, political unrest, and the cost of freedom in places where it’s anything but guaranteed.

Thank you, Simon & Schuster, for the copy.

Call Her Freedom is a hard topic, but an easy book to read. Aisha is the main protagonist, although the story covers multiple generations and switches between narrators. It is presumably set in Kashmir, but the locations are fictionalized. This beautiful community is always at war, and the people are alternately trying to survive, get educated, fight for their land, heal their neighbors, and get out. It is a testament to survival.

I was blown away by this hauntingly beautiful novel set in Kashmir and spanning decades. From the minute I began reading this novel, I was transported to a time and place foreign to me. The setting was at once strikingly beautiful (the descriptions of the Himalayan foothills are stuck in my mind) and painfully hemmed in by brutal occupation. This is a story of women - alive and ghosts - and the ways in which they provide for, love, and protect their chosen families.
The use of perspective is purposeful and interesting. It was intriguing to me to see whose personal story was spotlighted and who we did not hear from. Over time, we see Aisha grow from a young girl living with her mother to becoming a matriarch of her own and surviving and even thriving despite military occupation, moving from her village to the city and navigating relationships with her in-laws, her husband, and her children. Her growth truly made me emotional, and her bravery and resilience will stick with me. I cannot recommend this one enough.

Set in a fictional country in the foothills of the Himalayas, Call Her Freedom spans decades and tells the story of a family torn apart by war and occupation. In interviews, Tara Dorabji has stated that she used Kashmir as the backdrop for this story, and its struggles for independence.

Aisha is a child of eight when the story begins in 1974. Her mother wants her to start going to school (a rarity for girls). The father is absent due to some unknown incident from the past, and Aisha and her mother seem to be shunned from the rest of the village. Because we get the story from Aisha's perspective, and she's so young, the book almost skews YA. We do get other perspectives - they shift over time from her teacher to her eventual husband and children, with their stories revolving around Aisha's.

Dorabji depicts a dark vision of the impact a military occupation has on an individual family, from opium farming to the guerrilla movement to vicious cruelty practiced by occupying soldiers. Parts can be on the nose: "They kill each other over religion. How can people be so cruel?", "And what did your generation do? You sold us to the colonizer under the veil of democracy", "Us men and our guns, what can we achieve?" Some scenes were graphically brutal and hard to read. War and occupation is heartbreaking and senseless, and Dorabji gets her message across in a fairly straightforward manner.

I don't understand why Kashmir was fictionalized. When reading about real events I like to be able to look at maps, understand the geography, understand the (fictional) events in the context of real history. I would have learned more if Charagan was real, and not a stand-in for Kashmir.

My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the digital ARC.

Call Her Freedom by Tara Dorabji was such a beautifully written story!
The writing was just so good.
And the characters kept me glued to the pages.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the eARC.

This book is hard to look away from, hard to stomach, and hard to forget. I really found this book to be one of a kind in good and bad ways. I won't forget it, but there are parts of it I kind of wish I could.

Call Her Freedom (publication day January 21, 2025) by Tara Dorabji is an intense and powerful multi-generational story of a family in the village of Poshkarbal in Kashmir, starting when Aisha is sent to school by her mother, Noorhajan, though few girls attend school. Her mother is the village midwife and herbalist, and is raising Aisha alone; Aisha does not know where her father has gone, but she finds out later that her mother is having an affair with her teacher. Though she doesn't speak much, Aisha gets top marks in school.

When Aisha gets older, her mother teaches her how to tend the hidden poppy field and who is safe to sell to, before she dies of what seems like tuberculosis when Aisha is 17. Her family looks in on her, and her teacher makes sure she owns the land, even after she marries the teacher's son, Alim, and does not attend college because a wife's job is to tend the home. The marriage is happy, but there is trouble with her mother in law, and she never tells Alim about the poppy fields, which pay for his college and his parents' lifestyle.

Told from alternating perspectives, with large gaps of time in between, we follow Aisha, Alim, and their family through the hard times, the return of Aisha's father, separation because the borders are closed, and Aisha's imprisonment and abuse at the hands of the soldiers who have overrun the village when she refuses to give them the name or location of her young niece. Dorabji uses magical realism, with Noorhajan's haunting of Aisha's father and sometimes Aisha.

Some scenes are difficult to read, but Dorabji handles these difficult topics with sensitivity and relates much of the problems the characters face back to misogyny and the inequality of women. Though it is mostly weight-neutral, there is some explicit anti-fat bias expressed by one of the soldiers in a flashback, which was unnecessary.

Otherwise, I thought it was an important and compelling read.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for my copy of Call Her Freedom by Tara Dorabji in exchange for an honest review. It publishes January 21, 2025.
I found this to be such a compelling story that was hard to put down. The writing is so good, and the story so important and interesting, I think almost anyone could glean some important lessons from reading it. I appreciate the amount of care that obviously went into the research and writing into this book.
I do feel like a warning is necessary though, in that there are some quite graphic parts, but they can be skimmed over.

An emotional and at times difficult tale of a family living in a land beset by political and sectarian strife. Aisha, daughter of Noor, is the centerpiece but the novel is also narrated by her husband Alim, her father in law Murad, and by Noor herself. It's framed by Noor in so many ways- a woman whose parents died in a fire and whose husband left shortly after, leaving her to raise not only Aisha but also the poppies which support them. After her death, Noor appears to members of the family at times when they need her and Aisha needs her more than anyone especially after Alim leaves for the capital and her son leaves to join the rebels. So much happens. So much tragedy. So much cruelty. And yet, there's also a lot of love, especially between Aisha and Alim. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Hard to review but easy to admire, this is a great read.

I love a good sweeping epic, and this one spans several decades in a mountain village in the Himalayas. I appreciated the inclusivity of this culture and the author's unique perspective. However, I never felt all the way connected to these characters. There were way too many POVs (sometimes switching perspectives randomly within one person's chapter), and there were times when the events just felt like trauma dumping. I understand the need to include scenes of violence in order to illustrate colonialism and military involvement in this village, but it felt like too many intense scenes just made me struggle to keep reading. There were also paranormal elements that felt out of place within the structure of the rest of the storytelling. I'm giving this three stars because some of the writing was quite beautiful, but I probably wouldn't recommend it for most readers.

I received a widget for this title and was hooked at "sweeping family saga." Politics just aren't my thing and I had a hard time understanding what was going on and who was fighting who and why. Aisha is the main character. She is raised by her mother, Noor, and her father left the family to fight in the war. Aisha went through a terrible trauma being tortured by the soldiers and even though the violence was documented I didn't know why she was targeted and I couldn't connect with her character. On top of everything else let's throw in the pandemic. I thought some of the writing was beautiful and I look forward to reading what she writes for her sophomore novel. I think with all the politics this just wasn't for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for providing me with a digital copy.

I loved Dorabji's writing and the character development of Aisha. I was totally absorbed in her story and the sacrifices she made to save her family and ultimately, the community. It left me thinking about the wider questions of colonialism and the cost to living under its rule. A great debut and can't wait to read more of the author's work.