Portholes Guest edited by Sunila Galappatti Five writers from Afghanistan share days from their journals of exile. This edition is a collaboration with Untold Narratives. A false return Excerpt from My Dear Kabul “We waited for him in the yard. After forty minutes, he returned. He faced us again. ‘Pack your things, we are to make a journey tonight.’” A place for today Fakhta “We enter the territory of Nairobi, my husband and I each lugging a pair of suitcases.” My Eid is my daughter’s dance Freshta “A deep silence rules these streets. I feel my culture vanishing.” A new arrival Zainab ‘I glance at myself in the large mirror hanging from the wall and re-arrange my scarf more closely around my face. I always do this, even in Canada, whenever I see an Afghan man.’ Someone else’s place Batool “I feel stress. This is not my place. I have entered the house of a God unfamiliar to me.” My dear father Marie “It is strange: we are thousands of miles apart, and I still think about what you and Madar would think.”
A false return Excerpt from My Dear Kabul “We waited for him in the yard. After forty minutes, he returned. He faced us again. ‘Pack your things, we are to make a journey tonight.’”
A place for today Fakhta “We enter the territory of Nairobi, my husband and I each lugging a pair of suitcases.”
My Eid is my daughter’s dance Freshta “A deep silence rules these streets. I feel my culture vanishing.”
A new arrival Zainab ‘I glance at myself in the large mirror hanging from the wall and re-arrange my scarf more closely around my face. I always do this, even in Canada, whenever I see an Afghan man.’
Someone else’s place Batool “I feel stress. This is not my place. I have entered the house of a God unfamiliar to me.”
My dear father Marie “It is strange: we are thousands of miles apart, and I still think about what you and Madar would think.”
