This is an extract from The Escape from Kabul by Karen Bartlett, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2026. Find out more about the book here, and get your copy here.
August 2021
Women’s Night
Imagine if the best night of your life is the one you spend in the dark. It’s hot—very hot, because all the power has gone out. There are no breezes to cool you, and no lights to see by. You are a woman in Nangarhar, Afghanistan, and for the first and only time in your life you can creep outside and sit and talk to other women. For hours you can talk together about your lives, your family—your dreams. You can laugh and be free. Then as the sky lightens you have to slip back into the shadows, alone, silent, smothered. Into the true darkness. If only the power would go out every night, you say. If only we could have this night of freedom again.
This is the night Raihana Attaee remembers. These were the voices of the women she heard every day in her courtroom, where she sat as a judge and passed judgment on the men who attacked them, oppressed them—and often, easily, killed them.
“On the back of the Nangarhar court building, a small door opened to the driveway of the Nangarhar court family houses. There were six houses on the driveway, three on each side. Six judges’ families occupied those houses.” The houses were old and in poor condition, but the judges were happy to live there because it was too dangerous to live outside the compound. Five of the homes belonged to men judges; one belonged to Raihana, a Hazara woman judge with a small family who had moved there from Kabul.
“In the year I lived in the Nangarhar court’s house, I could not see a woman’s face,” Raihana says. “When I had the chadari on, I could not breathe normally. I could not see where I was walking. I became tired and dizzy. When it was hot, I sweated and felt smelly. I felt sorry for those women who had to wear the chadari each time they left home.” The women were at home all day, and rarely went farther than the driveway.
“In summer Nangarhar becomes very hot. People use large water coolers to cool their houses and the electricity is unstable. Sometimes it cut off. On one of those days in the middle of summer, the electricity disconnected. We waited, but it did not come back on. When there was no electricity no one could stay inside. Everyone had to go outside to find a shadow. After hours of sitting in the yard, the sky darkened, and there were no stars or moon.” Raihana’s husband, Maqsood, took their young son, Arsam, and joined the other men in front of the court house. Raihana stayed in the yard with Humira, a young girl who looked after their son. “A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. It was a twelve-year-old girl named Shukria. ‘Judge Attaee,’ she said, ‘all the women are out on the driveway. Mom said you might like to join us. It is dark, so the men can’t see us.’”
Raihana says, “I couldn’t believe it. I had never seen so many women together on that driveway, and they were not wearing the chadari. The women’s eyes shone under the dark sky, and they seemed very happy. That night women of different ages joined together and had a happy time. Women talked and laughed loudly. Girls danced and played together. One of the girls sang a sweet Pashto song, and we all enjoyed it. Her mother told her to stop but she replied, ‘Mom, it is too dark – no man can recognize us. There are no boys to tell my father or brothers. It is women’s night.’ The mother laughed, and she continued singing. The moon—and electricity—did not return until midnight. The darkness allowed women to breathe freely, talk, and laugh loudly. To be unsupervised – not watched, or judged, by men.”
It was almost midnight when the lights came back on. “Suddenly, those noisy girls became silent. Women said goodbye. Everyone went quickly back to their own houses. Then the men came back, and life was normal again. The driveway was silent once more. When I put my head on the pillow, I thought about the women on the driveway. Women would choose a different life if they had freedom. They would prefer a happy, free, noisy, and friendly life. Women in my country never have a choice about how to live. When we come into this world, men, culture, religion, and values decide for us. I thought about those women, some of whom were first wives, and some of whom were second wives, and how hard it must be to be the second choice.”
The next day some girls came to Raihana’s house. “One of them said, ‘I hope the electricity goes off again tonight, and we can meet on the driveway. We love dancing and playing.’” Raihana turned on the television, and left them alone to listen to music. When they eventually went home they were laughing.
“Only a few days later the Taliban took over again. Now women in all parts of Afghanistan live as women in Nangarhar. They must wear the chadari and try to see the world from those tiny holes,” Raihana says.
Her dream is simple but fundamental: “I hope on one sunny, bright day, women can sit together on that driveway in Nangarhar court with no chadari. I hope the blue-eyed singing girl can sing again.” Now Raihana lives in New Zealand on a street with six houses, like in Nangarhar. From her new driveway she can see a neighbor in her eighties who drives to the swimming pool, and another middle-aged woman who rides her bike with her family. “Who knows, maybe one day a woman can drive up that driveway in Nangarhar and enjoy being independent. Maybe one day a woman can ride her bike there. Afghan women must fight for that day.”
(c) Karen Bartlett
Explore the full list of 2026 Orwell Prize finalists, and read further extracts from the books, here.