by Anna Learn

Under a Kabul Sky: Short Fiction by Afghan Women

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Given the cavernous absence of Afghan women short story writers in English anthologies of Persian literature, it is ground-breaking that we have collections like Under a Kabul Sky.

Prophetess – Baharan Baniahmadi

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Slowly, she begins to sense the presence of all the world’s women in her own body, women who have been wronged by men or society in general. These voices fill her, erasing her own.

Blood Feast: The Complete Short Stories of Malika Moustadraf – Malika Moustadraf

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Translated from the Arabic by Alice Guthrie, Blood Feast is a collection of fourteen stories that hiss and spit back at forms of unjust authority.

Seasons of Purgatory – Shahriar Mandanipour

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Mandanipour, in Khalili’s translation, cultivates an unsettling sort of ambiguity, an open-endedness that makes these stories rich with enigma, asking to be read, then read again.