The Afghan Wife

Author’s note As this is a work of fiction, none of the characters I have imagined are based on actual people. When I was an English language teacher my students shared their stories with me, and I have drawn on these for this book. Ahmad getting lost in the mountains, for example, was a real incident. One of my Laotian students told me of escaping at night over the border to Thailand. Her family spent twenty terrifying minutes searching in the dark for her three-year-old son who had wandered away. According to Afghani women I spoke to, life in Afghanistan in the 1970s was very different. Many older Afghani students had photographs of themselves as young women wearing Western clothes. Many of the younger ones had escaped just before the Taliban took over. In the early days of the revolution in Iran, women were targeted by the authorities. Several young Iranian students told of being arrested and taken to the local police station. They were often threatened with a beating for showing strands of hair from under a headscarf. Another student arrived in Australia from Iran in 1980. She was traumatised after several of her young female friends had been hanged. I visited Iran a couple of years ago as part of my research for the book. It is a physically beautiful country, with extremely friendly people and amazing historical sites. The strict dress codes described in the novel have been relaxed somewhat and women can now wear make-up. They can choose to wear a chador, but must always wear ‘respectable’ clothes in public, clothes that cover the whole body. A headscarf is still mandatory for all women, including those from overseas. It is an historical fact that sixty-six American hostages were seized on 4 November 1979, and fifty-two of them were held captive in Iran for 444 days. Shortly after the revolution, several Iranian counter-revolutionary groups were organised. As far as I know, none of them tried to rescue the American hostages. The rescue attempt in the novel, which was organised by Firzun, is purely imaginary. I have researched the background for this novel thoroughly and have the experience of living and visiting in a Muslim country over a number of years. I apologise for any inadvertent inaccuracies that may be present in this fictional story. It’s my wish that you enjoy reading The Afghan Wife and eventually its sequel, which is due to be published in 2019.