Writer
Batool is a writer, activist, and clinical psychologist. She was completing her PhD at a university in Iran and teaching at Kabul University when change came in 2021. Later that year, Batool and her family made their way to Pakistan overland, after a video went viral in which Batool spoke about her research into paedophilia. With help, the family were able to make it to Italy where they lived in a church for close to two years before coming to the UK. Batool and her family are seeking asylum in the UK, living in a refugee hotel while they wait to hear the outcome of their asylum case. Her story ‘The Grey-winged Pigeons of the Shrine’ was published in Words Without Borders in early 2024. Batool 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).