Afghan women turn to secret book clubs as a powerful form of resistance

Five young Afghan women have formed a clandestine book club as a silent act of resistance against the Taliban's tightening restrictions on female education and freedom.

Known as "Women with Books and Imagination," the group meets weekly in secret to discuss literature and find meaning in their restricted lives. The members, who were forced to abandon their dreams of higher education, say the club provides them with hope and strength.

The group’s reading list includes George Orwell’s "Animal Farm," Ernest Hemingway’s "The Old Man and the Sea," and novels by Iranian author Abbas Maroufi. Members noted that the books' themes of oppression, power, and resilience mirror their own experiences under Taliban rule.

Since taking power, the Taliban has banned women from attending universities and stripped away many of their fundamental freedoms. In response, the women change their meeting locations frequently to avoid detection by authorities.

For these women, reading is more than a hobby; they view it as a form of intellectual self-preservation and a quiet defiance of the regime.

The clandestine operations of Afghan women’s book clubs have evolved into a sophisticated form of non-violent resistance, directly challenging the Taliban’s systematic erasure of women from public life and higher education. In a landscape where academic freedom has been dismantled by theocratic mandates, the act of collective reading has transitioned from a literary pursuit into a critical mechanism for intellectual and personal preservation.

The group’s curriculum is pointedly analytical. By prioritizing the Western canon—specifically the works of George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway—participants are leveraging classic literature as a toolkit to dissect the mechanisms of state power and systemic endurance. This engagement is not merely escapist; it is a strategic effort to map their own reality against historical precedents of authoritarianism. The profound resonance they find in contemporary Iranian literature further highlights a shared geopolitical struggle, linking their local plight to a broader regional crisis of patriarchal theocracy and the suppression of civil liberties.

Ultimately, these circles function as an informal academic infrastructure—part clandestine university, part psychological safe haven. They represent a fundamental limit to state control: while the regime may exercise total authority over physical institutions and public spaces, it has failed to suppress the underlying demand for intellectual autonomy. This quiet rebellion underscores a critical reality for observers of the region: the endurance of human agency and the persistence of social connection even under the most restrictive regulatory environments.

While there is no direct impact on the Vietnamese-American community, this narrative of resilience—forged through education and cultural heritage—deeply resonates with the generations who survived war and political displacement. It mirrors the same grit seen in the evolution of Little Saigon and the nail salon industry, where families leveraged knowledge and community ties to transform upheaval into opportunity. For those who built new lives in the U.S. through various pathways, from early refugees to those arriving on F2B or H-1B visas, this focus on intellectual and cultural preservation remains a powerful shared experience.