The Underground Girls of Kabul

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Published Sept. 16, 2014 by Random House.

ISBN:: 978-1-4676-7635-9

(1 review)

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.

6 editions

lukethelibrarian reviewed The underground girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg

2022 #FReadom read 10/20

5 stars

I'm halfway to my 2022 #FReadom goal of reading 20 books challenged/threatened in Texas libraries & schools. Book 10 was The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg, a journalistic exploration of girls in Afghanistan who are raised/presented as boys. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/213715/the-underground-girls-of-kabul-by-jenny-nordberg

When we frame identity formation as "nature vs nurture," we overlook many factors that are neither natural nor nurturing: power, inequality, violence. Nordberg's reporting shows that expression of gender can be expression of resistance, of self-determination, of freedom.