"Isabelle Delloye first made her way to Afghanistan as a teacher shortly before the Soviet invasion of 1980, and returned several times, including once as a journalist during the height of the Taliban's power. During each visit, she befriended and worked with hundreds of women from a variety of castes and tribes, gaining admittance to a world rarely glimpsed by Westerners. In Women of Afghanistan, Delloye lends a compassionate ear to their words, sharing two decades of political perspectives and intimate stories. Here she records the recollections of those like Nour Khanom, a rural child bride who lived a life of hard labor and was treated no better than a pack animal, and of Chekeba, who escaped amidst Soviet bombs and returned years later to build a school for girls in the Panshir Valley."--Jacket.