It was just a year ago that the U.S. withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. On that date, Nahid Shahalimi, an Afghan female writer living in Germany, realized that she needed to hurry to record the stories of prominent Afghan women who soon would try to escape their country, or stay and risk death. She did so, and compiled their stories in “We Are Still Here. ... Show More
Aug 21
Kathy Wang Believes in Satisfaction
Kathy Wang’s newest, The Satisfaction Café is the story of Joan Laing, her compromises, her victories, her loves and her loneliness. In this memorable story, Joan and her reflections lead us through the journey of her life…culminating in the opening of a unique, strange and lovel ... Show More
32m 11s
Aug 14
Our Writer in Residence Finishes His First Draft
J. Ryan Stradal is our Writer in Residence, if you have been following along. What does that mean? Well, we have been with him from step one since he started his fourth novel, as yet unnamed. A deeply personal novel that imagines the third act his mother might have lived if she h ... Show More
39m 28s
Aug 7
Classics Series: Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a feverishly paced, lyrical portrait of an unnamed African American man in the 1930’s. Hauntingly beautiful and raw, this book changed how Americans think about race. Immediately popular and the winner of the National Book Award in 1953, Ralph Ell ... Show More
36m 12s
Aug 2022
Afghan women keep hope alive one year after the fall of Kabul
One year after the Taliban took over Kabul, Afghan-Canadian author Nahid Shahalimi says the voices of Afghan women are not being heard. In her new book, We Are Still Here: Afghan Women on Courage, Freedom, and the Fight to Be Heard, Shahalimi collects the stories and struggles of ... Show More
26m 45s
Nov 2021
The plight of girls under the Taliban
In Afghanistan, high schools are currently closed to girls, and women have been banned from TV dramas. So how hard is life for the female half of the population, as the Taliban reassert control?Tamasin Ford hears from her colleague Yalda Hakim, who recently returned to the Afghan ... Show More
18m 13s
Apr 2020
Fatima Bhutto - The Shadow of the Crescent Moon
Long-listed for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, Bhutto’s lyrical debut novel unfolds over the course of one morning in Mir Ali, a small town in Pakistan's Tribal Areas close to the Afghan border.
Set during the American invasion of Afghanistan, it chronicles the lives of f ... Show More
49m 20s