Portholes
Five writers from Afghanistan share days from their journals of exile. This edition is a collaboration with Untold Narratives.
Edited by: Sunila Galappatti
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Private conversations with history
Sunila Galappatti
“At its heart, journal-keeping is a repetitive ritual, too pedestrian to be glamorous. One must not only live the life but also write it down.”
Sunila Galappatti's introduces Portholes, a collection of diary entries by women from a writing group in Afghanistan.
A false return
Fakhta and Parwana Fayyaz
“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 diary entry by Fakhta about leaving her village in Daikundi in Central Afghanistan in secret with her parents in 2021, heading to Kabul.
A place for today
Fakhta and Parwana Fayyaz
“We enter the territory of Nairobi, my husband and I each lugging a pair of suitcases.”
Fakhta's diary entry from Nairobi, Kenya, where she has newly arrived in 2024 with her husband.
My Eid is my daughter’s dance
Freshta and Dr Negeen Kargar
“A deep silence rules these streets. I feel my culture vanishing.”
Freshta in a diary entry from 2024 on celebrating Eid in California with her daughter, far from their homeland.
A new arrival
Zainab and Parwana Fayyaz
‘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.’
Zainab, writing in 2024 from British Columbia, meets Ismail, who is the spitting image of her deceased cousin.
Someone else’s place
Batool and Parwana Fayyaz
“I feel stress. This is not my place. I have entered the house of a God unfamiliar to me.”
Batool's diary entry from Oxfordshire in 2024 details her visit to a church after she has received some terrible news about her young cousin.
My dear father
Marie and Parwana Fayyaz
“It is strange: we are thousands of miles apart, and I still think about what you and Madar would think.”
Marie writes a difficult letter to her father from Germany about her new life and new habits, including the way she wears her hair now.