Chapter Fourteen It’d been two and a half hours since Frishta had entered a mud house. The day had turned into a moonful night, and, like a fearful shepherd standing on guard for the wolf’s arrival, I waited impatiently by the corner of a dirt alleyway with a thin stream dug along it. Open,…

Book review: THE LONE LEOPARD, Sharifullah Dorani’s 436 pages, published 28 July 2022 by S&M Publishing House, £2.99 Ebook, £10.99 Paperback, $19.99 Hardcover, https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B6WRCNFK/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_bibl_vppi_i0. (The review was originally published by Bedfordshire Refugee and Asylum Seeker Support, BRASS.) Sharifullah Dorani was a guest speaker at our Annual General Meeting to talk about his newly published novel,…

By Dr Sharifullah Dorani* Introduction ‘Fear was widespread, not just in the days immediately after the [9/11] attacks, but throughout the fall of 2001. Most Americans said they were…worried about another attack.’ Pew Research Center[1] Although later decision-making in the George W Bush Administration was conducted in secrecy and without much deliberation, the decision to…

Chapter Thirteen Brigadier and Mahjan greeted my parents in the hallway. A knock on the door, to my anxiety. I pulled the blanket over me. A pause. The door opened, stayed for a moment, and then shut. My withdrawal had worried Mour. Thanks, Khudai, she left without bothering me to join them. I freaked…

Chapter Twelve The buffalo-headed Mullah Rahmat lumbered in, followed by the religious studies ustad, Rauf Khan. The mudir told his two bodyguards, armed with Kalashnikovs, to go back to the edara. Instructed us to get some chairs and the students from nine jim. Baktash and I, together with a few others, executed the order…

Chapter Eleven The following day, to many students’ horror, the buffalo-headed Mullah Rahmat showed up at the assembly. He’d dismissed Raziq Khan for failing to follow his ‘clear instructions’ and reiterated his ‘feet-and-the-halek’s-stomach’ threat. We marched into separate year nine classes: one all jelais; the other all haleks. We were in the nine alef,…