The Almond Garden of Kabul

Author(s): Mandana Hendessi

Location(s): Kabul

Genre(s): Fiction

Era(s): early-mid 2000s

They called it Badam Bagh – the Almond Garden. But inside Kabul’s central women’s prison, nothing bloomed. Nothing except rage. When Niloofar, a teenage inmate, sets herself on fire, the authorities call it a suicide attempt. But two women – Sultan, a feared inmate who once killed her abusive husband, and Setara, a teacher and gifted artist imprisoned for a crime she did not commit – begin to suspect that the fire was not just a tragedy, but a protest.
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As they uncover a web of abuse and corruption, they draw in fellow inmates Sheyda and Geisha along the way. Together, they risk everything to expose a sinister secret that stretches far beyond the prison walls.
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In a land where fire once symbolised truth and divine power, their silence becomes the flame that sets the system ablaze.
Set against a brutal system built to erase them, The Almond Garden of Kabul is a haunting story of resistance, remembrance, and the fire women carry within them.

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