Siamak Herawi’s first novel to be translated into English, Tali Girls, is a haunting portrait of the resilience of Afghan women and the power of love and friendship in the face of oppression. In 2006, when the Taliban are gaining power and momentum as they fight U.S. occupation forces in Afghanistan, they extend their hold on the provinces and start implementing their warped interpretation of Sharia Law. This political landscape serves as fertile ground for Herawi's unflinching critique of the caustic fallout from religious fundamentalism.

The narrative, while told from multiple points of view, centers on Kowsar, a young girl living in the mountain village of Tali, a bucolic haven untouched by the orthodox ideologies of the Taliban and their so-called jihad. Since early childhood, she is afflicted with convulsive syncope, a condition in which severe anxiety and stress make her lose consciousness.

This doesn’t stop her mother from preaching life lessons that young Kowsar finds frightening and stress-inducing, as would any child when told that a “wretch” like her, like her mother, can have no voice, no agency, her future already relegated to marriage, breeding children, and cooking. Amid this dreary life, hope arrives when Kowsar befriends her neighbor Geesu, and there’s talk of a school opening in the village.

Mullah Sikhdad, the village clergyman, first decries the idea of education, stating that it would corrupt the young, make them “faithless sinners.” But then he succumbs to the promise of a salary and the position of school principal. Here, Herawi first begins to develop the themes of hypocrisy and exploitation — under the guise of religious piety and concern — that permeate the novel. Mullah Sikhdad exemplifies the corrupt clergy who turn a blind eye when offered worldly gain, but Herawi goes further with villainous, sinister men of faith when he introduces Mawlawi Khodadad, the Director of Religious Education.

After the school opens in Tali, Kowsar’s teacher, Sadeq, discovers the girl’s aptitude for learning and eidetic memory. He convinces Kowsar’s father of her talent, and together, the three travel to Qala-e-Naw, the provincial city, to seek support and scholarship from the Director of Education. But, to the reader’s dismay, that director dismisses Kowsar’s case and transfers it to Khodadad.

A lecherous man, Khodadad rejects the idea of supporting Kowsar and disguises his lust under a feigned concern for her religious education. Then he commands her father to “take her home, safeguard her,” so that Khodadad himself can make her his third wife when she “ripens” in a year. Khodadad (mis)quotes the Holy Prophet to support his claim:

“Girls are like fruits on a tree. If not picked in time, the sun will ruin them.”

Only two weeks after Kowsar’s return to Tali, Khodadad arrives to fulfill his word. In a terrible reprieve for Kowsar, the 58-year-old Khodadad chooses instead her classmate, 9-year-old Simin, in exchange for 200 sheep and two milk cows. Here, the author expertly shifts the narrative to Simin’s point of view, relaying the horrifying events in Qala-e-Naw, during which the young girl fights to liberate herself from her husband and his violence. In between, she finds small moments of comfort and warmth. “From Zoleikha, I learn to sometimes laugh,” Simin says about Khodadad’s first wife. The power of friendship can relieve the burden of womanhood, if only for a while.

In this often dark novel, moments of tenderness alleviate the gloom. Back in Tali, Kowsar marries her lover despite the Taliban’s arrival and their radical agenda forbidding women from leaving their homes, let alone falling in love. “We have friends…in the local and provincial government, powerful men such as Mawlawi Khodadad,” the Taliban leader warns the locals as he shuts down the school and compels farmers to grow opium instead of their regular crops.

Herawi’s critique of religious fundamentalism broadens as he assigns the blame for Afghanistan’s woes to the power-hungry. In this vein, the author also acknowledges the role “outsiders and inciters” play in perpetuating oppression by disrupting security and creating a political vacuum to be filled by the Taliban.

While Herawi weaves a tight, gripping plot, his characters could use more nuance — the good ones like teacher Sadeq and Kowsar’s father have no flaws, whereas the menacing, evil ones such as Mullah Sikhdad never once display a moral conscience or hesitate to commit terrible deeds. But maybe it is necessary (and even justified) sometimes to have the villains remain villains and the heroes stay pure of heart.

After all, we know men like Khodadad, thriving not just in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, but around the world, working for other religious entities. Perhaps Tali Girls is not just a story of Afghanistan but one of universal evil. Maybe this was Herawi’s intention all along: to illuminate the monsters, the men consumed by power, greed, and lust.

Bareerah Y. Ghani is a Canadian Pakistani writer, reviewer, and editor. She holds an MFA in Fiction from George Mason University and her work has appeared in the Rumpus, Electric Literature, Moon City Review, and other places. Follow her on Twitter at @Bareera_yg or Instagram at @bareerah_ghani.

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