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A Novel
by Nadia Hashimi
Book Reviewed by:Mahmoud's passion for his wife Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she's ever known. But their happy, middle-class world—a life of education, work, and comfort—implodes when their country is engulfed in war, and the Taliban rises to power.
In Kabul, we meet Fereiba, a schoolteacher who puts her troubled childhood behind her when she finds love in an arranged marriage. But Fereiba's comfortable life implodes when the Taliban rises to power and her family becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime. Forced to flee with her three children, Fereiba has one hope for survival: to seek refuge with her sister's family in London.
Traveling with forged papers and depending on the kindness of strangers, Fereiba and the children make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness, the start of a harrowing journey that reduces her from a respected wife and mother to a desperate refugee.
Eventually they fall into the shadowy underground network of the undocumented who haunt the streets of Europe's cities. And then, in a busy market square in Athens, their fate takes a frightening turn when Fereiba's teenage son, Saleem, becomes separated from the rest of the family. Without his mother, Saleem is forced, abruptly and unforgivingly, to come of age in a world of human trafficking and squalid refugee camps.
Heartbroken, Fereiba has no choice but to continue on with only her daughter and baby. Mother and son cross border after perilous border, risking their lives in the hope of finding a place where they can be reunited.
Free printable reading guide
The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.
—"DROPPING KEYS" BY HAFIZ, A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY SUFI POET
PROLOGUE
Fereiba
THOUGH I LOVE TO SEE MY CHILDREN RESTING SOUNDLY, IN THE quiet of their slumber my uneasy mind retraces our journey. How did I come to be here, with two of my three children curled on the bristly bedspread of a hotel room? So far from home, so far from voices I recognize.
In my youth, Europe was the land of fashion and sophistication. Fragrant body creams, fine tailored jackets, renowned universities. Kabul admired the fair-complexioned imperialists beyond the Ural Mountains. We batted our eyelashes at them and blended their refinement with our tribal exoticism.
When Kabul crumbled, so did the starry-eyed dreams of my generation.
We no longer saw Europe's frills. We could barely see beyond our own streets, so thick were ...
The unbelievable love, courage and tenacity of being a refugee as well as the smell of fear is all in this book. Yet, it is somehow hopeful. I learned a great deal about so much and enjoyed this book immensely. Somehow every nation must find a way to welcome and support refugees — they are leaving a hell we can't imagine...continued
Full Review
(631 words)
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(Reviewed by First Impressions Reviewers).
When the Moon is Low has Fereiba narrate much of the action as she flees Afghanistan, along with her children, for refuge in England. While Fereiba's story is one of escape, there are countless women left behind who must endure daily life in a country where the Taliban's extremely stifling laws leave a suffocating footprint.
The Afghan Women's Writing Project (AWWP) was founded in 2009 as an outlet for the country's women to share their stories and experiences. In November of 1999, Zarmeena, an Afghan mother of seven was executed by the Taliban in Kabul's Ghazi stadium as punishment for having killed her husband. A video of that outrageous act made its way to the founder of AWWP, Masha Hamilton, who became convinced that Zarmeena's story...
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