The Vanishing Girl of Kabul

This is the story of Zahra Joya's life in Afghanistan and her subsequent exile. As a child, she had to dress as a boy to gain an education; later under US rule, she qualified as a lawyer and then a journalist. Then, shockingly, the years of freedom and education were overturned literally overnight when the US withdrew and Kabul fell to the Taliban.

Afghanistan quickly became the key battleground in the global struggle for women's equality, and as a journalist reporting on abuses of women, Zahra's life was in danger. Beginning anew in London without most of her family, she knows that her fight extends far beyond Afghanistan. The lessons from her story, and the stories she is made aware of every day, are never more urgently needed in a world inching closer to authoritarianism—from her compatriots banned from showing their faces in public to the lawmakers denying women bodily autonomy, to the rise of the incel movement and the spread of trad wives messaging.

Coming at a time when feminist activism is being signalled globally, when writers are speaking out against censorship and genocide, and we are increasingly aware of the power of journalism to change the world, The Vanishing Girl of Kabul is a story about all women and how they are treated when men are at their worst. Most importantly, it is about fighting back, and having hope. It's a story about an ordinary girl who became a human rights campaigner; it stretches beyond Afghanistan to encompass injustices suffered by women across the globe, and it is a stark reminder of what it means to be betrayed— as a country, by the West, but also as a woman, by the men who rule the world.