My forbidden face : growing up under the Taliban : a young woman's story / Latifa ; with the collaboration of Chekeha Hachemi ; translated by Lisa Appignanesi
Latifa was born in Kabul in 1980 into an educated middle-class Afghan family, at once liberal and religious. As a teenager she was interested in fashion and cinema and going out with her friends, and she longed to become a journalist. Her mother, a doctor, and her father a businessman, encouraged her dreams. Then, in 1996, the Taliban seized power. From that moment, Latifa, sixteen years old, became a prisoner in her own home. Her school was closed. Her mother was banned from working. The simplest and most basic freedoms - walking down the street, looking out of a window - were no longer hers. She was now forced to cover herself entirely with a burqa. With painful honesty and clarify, Latifa describes how her world fell apart in the name of a fanatical interpretation of a faith
