Kimberly A. Ponders is a fiction writer and former military aircrew weapons controller. Her first novel, The Art of Uncontrolled Flight, was released with HarperCollins in September 2005. Her second novel, The Last Blue Mile, was released 22 May 2007.
Antonia Juhasz is an American oil and energy analyst, author, journalist and activist. She has authored three books: The Bush Agenda (2006), The Tyranny of Oil (2008), and Black Tide (2011).
Sakena Yacoobi is the founder and Executive Director of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), an Afghan women-led NGO she founded in 1995. She is well known for her work for the rights of children, women and education. She has earned international recognition for her work and received numerous awards. This includes the 2013 Opus Prize, 2015 WISE Prize in Education and 2016 Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education as well as 6 honorary degrees including from Princeton University.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. It is his second, following his bestselling 2003 debut, The Kite Runner. Mariam is an illegitimate child, and suffers from both the stigma surrounding her birth along with the abuse she faces throughout her marriage. Laila, born a generation later, is comparatively privileged during her youth until their lives intersect and she is also forced to accept a marriage proposal from Rasheed, Mariam's husband.
Christina Lamb OBE is a British journalist and author. She is the chief foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times.
Anand Gopal is a journalist and author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes, which describes the travails of three Afghans caught in the war on terror. It was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction.
On 5 August 2010, ten members of International Assistance Mission (IAM) Nuristan Eye Camp team were killed in Kuran wa Munjan District of Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan. The team was attacked as it was returning from Nuristan to Kabul. One team member was spared while the rest of the team were killed immediately. Those killed were six Americans, two Afghans, one Briton and one German.
Julia Cheiffetz is an American publisher, writer, and editor who currently lives in New York City.
Bibi Aisha is an Afghan woman whose mutilated face appeared on the cover of Time magazine in summer 2010.
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is the author of two New York Times best sellers, Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield(2015) and The Dressmaker of Khair Khana (2011), about a young entrepreneur who supported her community under the Taliban. Ashley's War is now in the development process of becoming a film, with Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea producing. Lemmon's TED Talk on Ashley's War has received more than a million views and her TED Talk on the power of women entrepreneurs opened the TEDXWomen conference in 2011. Lemmon, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations Women and Foreign Policy Program, has recently committed to write her next book for Penguin Press on the all-women units who spent the last four years leading the fight against ISIS in Syria and now are part of the world's most radical experiment in women's equality — in the world's least likely place. She currently serves as partner and CMO of the technology firm Shield AI. Along with her national security work, Lemmon has reported and written extensively on topics including child marriage in the United States for PBS NewsHour and on school choice, single moms and the power and importance of girls’ ambition for The Atlantic.
Fatema Akbari is an Afghan entrepreneur and women's advocate who is founder of the Gulistan Sadaqat Company and non-governmental organization the Women Affairs Council. In 2011 she received the 10,000 Women Entrepreneurial Achievement Award.
Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords, and One Woman's Journey Through Afghanistan is a 2011 book by Fariba Nawa. The author travels throughout Afghanistan to talk with individuals part of the opium production in Afghanistan, centering on women's role in it. Generally, reviewers felt that the book succeeded in its portrayal of Afghan culture and the impact of the opium trade on Afghans.
Roya Mahboob is a businesswoman and entrepreneur from Afghanistan. She founded and serves as CEO of the Afghan Citadel Software Company, a full-service software development company based in Herat, Afghanistan. She has received attention for being among the first IT female CEOs in Afghanistan, where it is still relatively rare for women to work outside the home. On 18 April 2013, Roya Mahboob was named to TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2013 for her work in building internet classrooms in high schools in Afghanistan and for Women's Annex, a multilingual blog and video site hosted by Film Annex. This was the 10th anniversary of the TIME special edition. The Women's Annex platform give the women of Afghanistan and Central Asia a platform to tell their stories to the world. The TIME magazine introduction to Roya Mahboob was written by Sheryl Sandberg who is the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook and the author of "Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead". U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Roya Mahboob and other Afghan women entrepreneurs at the International Center for Women's Economic Development at the American University of Afghanistan. She is also known for her work with online film distribution platform and Web Television Network Film Annex on the Afghan Development Project. She is a current advisor at the Forbes School of Business & Technology.
Sushmita Banerjee, also known as Sushmita Bandhopadhyay and Sayeda Kamala, was a writer and activist from India. Her works include the memoir Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou based on her experience of marrying an Afghan and her time in Afghanistan during Taliban rule. The story was used as the basis for the Bollywood film Escape from Taliban.
The "Hillary Doctrine" is the doctrine of former United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, particularly in reference to her stance that women's rights and violence against women should be considered issues of national security. The doctrine encompasses stances she has held before, during, and after her tenure as secretary.
Rape is a major issue in Afghanistan. A number of human rights organizations have criticized the country's rape laws and their enforcement.
Ann Scott Tyson is an award-winning American journalist, reporting from combat zones since the invasion of Iraq, and recently from Asia. She has written for The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Seattle Times.
Kamila Sidiqi is an Afghan entrepreneur, government official, and the subject of the New York Times bestselling book, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana.
Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West (2008) is the last book by former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The book was published after her assassination.
Laila Haidari is an Afghan activist and restaurateur. She runs Mother Camp, a drug rehabilitation centre she founded in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2010. She also owns Taj Begum, a Kabul cafe that funds Mother Camp. Taj Begum is frequently raided because it breaks taboos; the cafe is run by a woman and allows unmarried men and women to eat together. Haidari is the subject of the 2018 documentary film Laila at the Bridge.
