My Forbidden Face: GROWING UP UNDER THE TALIBAN: A YOUNG WOMAN'S STORY

Born into a middle-class Afghan family in Kabul in 1980, Latifa spent her early teenage days talking fashion and movies with her friends, listening to music, and dreaming of becoming a journalist.Then, on September 26, 1996, Taliban soldiers seized power in Kabul. Suddenly, streets were deserted. Her school was closed. Phones were cut. The radio fell silent. And from that moment, Latifa, just sixteen years old, became a prisoner in her own home. The simplest and most basic freedomslike walking down the street alone or even looking out of a windowwere forbidden.Latifa had never worn a veil before, but was now forced to put on a chadri, the state-mandated uniform that covered her entire body. Disbelief at having to hide herself was soon replaced by fear, the fear of being whipped or stoned like the other women shed seen in the streets. My Forbidden Face provides a moving and highly personal account of life under the Taliban regime. With painful honesty and clarity, Latifa describes her ordered world falling apart, in the name of a fanaticism that she could not comprehend, and replaced by a world where terror and oppression reign. In May 2001, Latifa and her parents escaped Afghanistan and were brought to Europe in an operation organized by a French-based Afghan resistance group and French Elle. Since then she has been writing My Forbidden Face in collaboration with Chekeba Hachemi, the founder of Afghanistan Libre. They both live in Paris.