Afghan women and girls form secret book-reading groups amid Taliban education bans

A group of five Afghan women meets secretly every week to read and discuss books by authors including Abbas Maroufi, Zoya Pirzad, George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway, viewing the activity as resistance to Taliban restrictions, according to a Guardian report cited by Afghanistan International.

Four members gather in person every Thursday in a small room at one member's home, with the fifth joining by phone. They call themselves "Women with Books and Imagination" and analyze works such as "Sal-e Bolva," "The Old Man and the Sea," "Animal Farm" and "Symphony of the Dead," discussing themes of suppression, women's roles and hope for the future. The women download books online for free, sometimes borrowing from libraries, and change meeting locations weekly for 1.5 hours to avoid attention. They use VPNs to access content.

One member said: "When they banned us from school, I lost all hope. My mother encouraged me, but I knew things wouldn't get better. I decided to do something myself, and now I have this reading circle."

The group lost their education dreams upon the Taliban's return and are among over two million women and girls deprived of schooling in the past four years. Another member stated: "The Taliban fear aware women. To fight the Taliban, we must become aware and grow. All together."

Separately, in Herat, a group of girls has formed self-initiated book-reading circles in response to the Taliban education ban, reading works by Tolstoy, Chekhov, Ludmila Ulitskaya, Abbas Maroufi, Sadegh Hedayat, as well as books on sociology, biology and psychology, according to Amu TV.

Najla, a pseudonym, favors Richard Dawkins and says the books help her understand prior school learning; she was in sixth grade when schools closed. She feels fulfilled with peers and worries about early marriage, noting books changed her views on marriage. Nasimeh, the oldest, would now be in her fourth university year studying Persian literature to become a teacher; she writes short stories shared online with the "Golden Needle" writing academy.

These activities echo early Taliban rule when girls pursued underground classes, described as small flames of cultural and educational resistance.