In August 2021, as the Taliban approached the gates of Kabul, twenty-one women writers in Afghanistan came online in their WhatsApp chat group: they asked what news others had heard and if everyone was safe. These women had been brought together as a writing group. They were about to publish their first collection of short stories, while working regular day jobs. Some were students, some newly married, one was a grandmother: all were afraid of what was now to come. Over the next year, in the makeshift refuge of their WhatsApp group, they shared the day-to-day reality of life after a fall. My Dear Kabul is their collective diary: in it the writers watch cities transform, schools close, families change and freedoms disappear. They share stories of chaos, protest and flight and of life continuing. Check-points are a daily trial; men start behaving differently. Children can’t afford the ice-cream man’s wares; passports are near impossible to obtain. Together, their messages form a powerful chorus of resistance and solidarity.
