Well, that's obviously part of the origin story of the book, but could you talk about ... that a little bit more as well as the broader origin story.

Yeah, I mean, during 2021, there was so much going on.

The headlines were leg- just literally day by day, minute by minute, we were just watching everything unfold.

And, um, it was, it was quite dramatic, very tense, even for people in the diaspora watching, just trying to imagine what was going on on the ground over there.

Um, and at that time, then there was, you know, a group of Afghan families, Afghan individuals, vulnerable people, people who had worked alongside the Americans who arrived here in the United States, and I was involved with a program that was building psychosocial support for these individuals.

And so I was meeting a lot of people, people who had been at the airport, who had gone through this just long, arduous journey, uh, taking all of the risks, um, including people who had survived the bombing that happened at the airport.

And I remember even at that time, some people asking me, "Are you gonna write about this?" And it was just in the midst of all this chaos, and I thought, "Oh my gosh, this is, like, not even on my mind right now." Um, but of course, you know, the dust settles eventually, and then we have people who are resettling and s- the next chapter starting, the next version of their struggles are, are, are beginning.

Yeah

And how quickly did that thing decide time, things in this country that was already declining? If things were already changing, how quickly did we have a reverse of when it was announced besides the time when everybody was leaving in that August?

So even about, let's say, two years before 2021, that lead up to when the United States said they were going to withdraw.

We were like, oh, there's a deal that's coming out between the US and the Taliban.

And there was a lot of tension also because the Afghan government at the time was not in the room for these conversations between the US and the Taliban.

And then here comes the news of this deal where the U.S. says it's a four page document.

It's a it's a very simple read.

It's a it's astonishing read because the United States basically says, yes, we promise to leave.

I'm going to talk about what women were like there.

So was your research for not just this book, but your other books, does that come from talking with your family? How do you get yourself into the mind of this character and what she actually would be thinking in 2021 versus perhaps the 70s?

Right.

So a lot, there's a lot of stuff that I think, you know, just by osmosis, I'm in the culture, I'm in the language.

Like, so some of that just feeds into the story, the personalities and just the mannerisms, the food and all the music, all of that stuff just comes from family and being around this all the time.

But then there are other pieces of it that come from like real research.

So, you know, for this story, for example, this is a story of a woman who was serving in an all-female platoon that drops into villages under cover of night.

They fast drove out of helicopters and people wouldn't expect Afghan women to.

Do you just get a concept? Like what's your, do you kind of ask yourself, is it a question? Is it something you're curious about? How does it, how did this concept come to you?