A searing, deeply personal memoir of a tenacious Afghan girl who
educated herself behind closed doors and fought her way to a new life.
"Stories like this inspire me. Seeing the way people like Sola Mahfouz
think about the world reinforces my optimism about the future."―BILL
GATES
Sola Mahfouz was born in Afghanistan in 1996. That same year, the
Taliban took over her country for the first time. They banned television
and photographs, presided over brutal public executions, and turned the
clock backwards on women's rights, practically imprisoning women within
their own homes and forcing them to wear all-concealing burqas. At age
eleven, Sola was forced to stop attending school after a group of men
threatened to throw acid in her face if she continued. After that she
was confined to her home, required to cook and clean and prepare for an
arranged marriage. She saw the outside world only a handful of times
each year.
As time passed, Sola began to understand that she was condemned to the
same existence as millions of women in Afghanistan. Her future was
empty. The rest of her life would be controlled entirely by men, fathers
and husbands and sons who would never allow her to study, to earn money,
or even to dream.
Driven by this devastating realization, Sola began a years-long fight to
change the trajectory of her life. She decided that education would be
her way out. At age sixteen, without even a basic ability to add or
subtract, she began secretly to teach herself math and English. She
progressed rapidly, and within just two years she was already studying
topics such as philosophy and physics. Faced with obstacles at every
turn, Sola still managed to sneak into Pakistan to take the SAT. In
2016, she escaped to the United States, where she is now a quantum
computing researcher at Tufts University.
An engrossing, dramatic memoir, co-written with young Indian American
human rights activist Malaina Kapoor, Defiant Dreams is the story of
one girl, but it's also the untold story of a generation of women
brimming with potential and longing for freedom.
