Last to Eat, Last to Learn: My Life in Afghanistan Fighting to Educate Women

Education activist Durrani’s auspicious debut memoir examines the obstacles facing women in Afghanistan and recounts her own efforts to break down those barriers. Raised in a refugee camp in Pakistan, Durrani received an education thanks to her father, a Pashtun tribal leader who opened a girls’ school in their camp. “My job was to come back from my private English lessons and immediately teach the girls whatever I learned,” Durrani recalls. Interweaving the history of women’s education in Afghanistan with the nitty-gritty details of her activism, Durrani notes that when she made her first visit to the country at age 16, she was shocked to see so many women in burqas. She turned down a scholarship to Oxford University to move to Afghanistan, where she interned at various NGOs before launching the advocacy group LEARN and opening a community school in Kandahar Province. Briskly recounting the ins and outs of her quest to make her vision of giving students solar-powered tablets preloaded with lessons and books a reality, Durrani offers a persuasive road map for pursuing gender equality while honoring Afghanistan’s religious and cultural traditions. It’s an inspiring portrait of a change-maker in action. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency. (May)