Freshta

Freshta worked as a journalist in Afghanistan. She and her husband left the country in 2019 after the Taliban threatened the radio station where she worked as a reporter of women’s affairs. They crossed the border into Tajikistan; there they made multiple applications for resettlement in other countries and waited for an email informing them of the outcome. Their first child was born without any paperwork to register her place in the world. After three and a half years in Tajikistan, the email did finally come, and the family have recently arrived in California. Freshta is an editor and reporter with the Zan Times News Agency; she is a contributor to My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird (MacLehose Press, 2021), Rising After the Fall (Scholastic, 2023) and My Dear Kabul (Coronet 2024).