An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir

Few westerners will ever be able to understand Muslim or Afghan society unless they are part of a Muslim family. Twenty years old and in love Phyllis Chesler a Jewish-American girl from Brooklyn embarked on an adventure that has lasted for more than a half-century. In 1961 when she arrived in Kabul with her Afghan bridegroom authorities took away her American passport. Chesler was now the property of her husbands family and had no rights of citizenship. Back in Afghanistan her husband a wealthy westernized foreign college student with dreams of reforming his country reverted to traditional and tribal customs. Chesler found herself unexpectedly trapped in a posh polygamous family. She fought against her seclusion and lack of freedom her Afghan familys attempts to convert her from Judaism to Islam and her husbands wish to permanently tie her to the country through childbirth. Drawing upon her personal diaries Chesler recounts her ordeal the nature of gender apartheid―and her longing to explore this beautiful ancient and exotic country and culture. An American Bride in Kabul re-creates a time gone by a place that is no more and shares the way in which Chesler turned adversity into a passion for world-wide social educational and political reform.