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... Rob Schultheis, author of Night Letters: Inside Wartime Afghanistan and journalist for Time Magazine continues ...
“... The author, Janet Ollila Colberg, worked for the Peace Corps in southwestern Afghanistan before the 1979 Soviet invasion. Her book Allah’s Orphans: The Story of an Afghan Girl,
is based around what is obviously a deep understanding and love for the Afghans and their harsh, intractable yet beautiful homeland. Allah’s Orphans tells the story of Amina Gul, a girl growing up in Helmand Province as the tranquility of old Afghanistan is torn and sundered by invasion and war. As gripping as a good novel, as lyrical as a poem, it is also a fine piece of ethnography. Anyone teaching a high school or university class on Central Asia, Islam, traditional cultures or the lives of women in other lands should make Allah’s Orphans one of their textbooks. Any parents with teenaged daughters should put this on their shortlist of presents for the upcoming holidays. And anyone who just loves a great human story, who enjoys Barbara Kingsolver, Bapsi Sidhwa or Tracy Chevalier, should buy a copy.”
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