This report has been published in partnership with Avvenire.it
Among dozens of women whose books have been banned by the Taliban is Leila, a university lecturer in western Afghanistan.
Her book focuses on project management, including how to efficiently use resources like time, capital and labour efficiently. The book was used as a university textbook for undergraduates. “It took me two years to translate multiple English sources and then write my own book,” she says. “My book is about applying quality standards using scientific tools and techniques for the success of national and commercial projects.”
But after the Taliban took power, it was banned. “When I asked why, they said that because the author was a woman, it had to be removed,” Leila says.
Since being dismissed from her university job in December 2022 after the Taliban closed universities to women, Leila has managed to publish an academic paper in an international journal. Now, she says she no longer has the strength to write: “I have unfinished work, but sadly no motivation. Imagine standing at a dark crossroads, with no information about which way to go, everywhere you look, there’s only darkness.”
In August 2025, the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education issued two separate directives to universities across the country, instructing them to stop teaching 18 academic subjects, stating that the newly banned subjects “found to be contrary to sharia and the system’s policies and have therefore been removed from the curriculum.” In addition, the Taliban prohibited the use of around 640 textbooks and course materials. More than 140 of the titles were banned solely because their authors were women.Among the women blacklisted were female academics with more than 30 years of teaching experience and long records of research. Many activists say this is another systematic attempt by the Taliban to erase women’s voices from public life. As one professor notes, textbooks authored by women challenge the Taliban’s ideology by their very existence: “How can a woman be forbidden from teaching or studying, yet her book be taught in universities?”
In November, Zohra was refused a printing licence by the Taliban-run Ministry of Information and Culture. The 37-year-old has been writing children’s books since 2017. “My goal is to help Afghan children prepare mentally and emotionally for learning different subjects before they go to school,” she says. Her books use images of children and cartoons to make subjects like mathematics easier. “They told me not to use pictures of living beings, especially girls,” she recalls to Zan Times. “They said if I include a picture of a girl, she must be wearing Islamic hijab. Otherwise, my books won’t be printed in Afghanistan.”
Despite that refusal by the Taliban, Zohra continues working on new editions. “I believe these books will stand as a legacy of women’s resistance in Afghanistan’s history,” she says.
In October 2024, the Taliban distributed another list of 433 banned books to booksellers. Among them, 18 titles were written by women, including nine by Afghan authors: Saeqa Hadiya Yazdanwali, Atifa Tayeb, Fatema Jafari, Dr Marzia Mohammadzada, Shakiba Hashemi, Sohaila Aman, Dr Sediqa Hosseini, Nawida Khushbo, and Aqila Nargis Rahmani. No matter their subject, the Taliban deemed their work “against national interests” and also against their version of sharia.“I wrote about the Taliban in my book; that’s why they banned it,” says author Nawida Khushbo from London. “I was thinking, why should a woman not write about politics, and only be active in literature?” The ban also includes books by international women authors like Rachel Hollis, Reshma Saujani, and Malala Yousafzai’s biography, I am Malala.
Inside Afghanistan, some women continue to write, often at great risk. Nazanin, 25, writes short stories and essays from her home in a province near Kabul. “Sometimes it feels like the Taliban’s gun barrel is pointed directly at my throat,” she says. “The city is so militarized that we meet armed men at every step. For me, writing is resistance. My situation is very difficult, but I think about using it to record everything for the future.”
In November 2024, the 8am Daily reported that Taliban officials in Kapisa province had removed books by women from girls’ school libraries. That news is confirmed by Suraya, a 34-year-old teacher, who tells Zan Times, “From all girls’ schools and libraries, all books written by women were collected according to the Taliban’s order.”
In cities like Kandahar, bookshops rarely stock works by female writers. “In our bookstore, books written by women are almost zero,” says one bookseller. “Even a woman’s photo on a magazine cover can cause trouble.”
The desire for female authors to keep creating means they will not stop working, despite the risk. Mana, a 34-year-old writer in western Afghanistan, states, “When I decided to publish my first book, I never considered Afghan publishers. Under the Taliban, printing a book as a woman is dangerous.”
She is now writing her second novel. Though her topic isn’t political, she knows that her writing could come with a price, just because she’s a woman. For now, she prefers to “keep writing quietly, in a silent corner.”
Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees. Khadija Haidary is a Zan Times journalist and editor. A journalist with the pseudonym of Arya contributed reporting.
