PARVANA'S JOURNEY

Meera Simhan infuses poignancy into this wrenching story of a vulnerable girl named Parvana who traverses the ravaged Afghani landscape looking for her missing family, all the while posing as a boy for safety. Simhan's narration emphasizes the pervasive danger in post-Taliban Afghanistan for women of all ages as well as for liberally minded men. The narrator's understated and measured delivery takes in each horror the protagonist encounters, including abandoned babies and dead bodies. Simhan's steady pace mimics the coping mechanism needed by survivors of trauma to take in each moment as it occurs and then keep moving forward. This allows the reader to experience the story's nuances rather than being overwhelmed by despair at the abject circumstances that Parvana navigates. M.R. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2009]