The festival venue in Herat

The international Afghan film festival was organized for the first time on the occasion of Women’s day in the Afghan city, Herat. Cinema is difficult in Afghanistan, where religious, cultural and political problems come in the way of freedom of expression.

The lights in the hall grew dim as  German writer Sarah Khan began reading an excerpt from her latest book Die Gespenster von Berlin or The Ghosts of Berlin at the Annemarie Schimmel Cultural Institute in Lahore, Pakistan’s  second-largest city.

“They use us when they need us.” During the 20-minute-interview with Salma and while watching the hour-long documentary on her life, this one sentence kept haunting me.

Simone Umbach, a student of Koblenz University, is only 22 years old, but has already traveled a great deal. From July 2010 to July 2011 she spent one year as a volunteer in Pudupakkam, a village near Chennai. Meike Pohl describes Simone’s experiences.

Meena Kandasamy is an upcoming poet based in Chennai in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. She writes on women’s themes and on the Dalits, member of the lower castes in India. Her poetry collection is called ‘Touch.” She spoke to DW blogger Roma Rajpal on being a poet and her passion for writing.

Fakhria (Zia) Maiwand, my lovely grandmother and daughter of Azizullah Maiwand the great-grandson of Tatar Baba, who was a known tribal leader in the Battle of Maiwand, in which the British Empire was defeated for the first time in history

“Waslat! Tell your cousin to move his head away from your shoulder or I’ll pick his eyes out” she yells at me. The lights have gone out in Kabul and it is dark in our apartment. With her long white hair and fair complexion, she reminds me of a ghost.

Anjum Hasan is a young Indian writer who won the Man Literary Prize in 2009 for her book “Neti, Neti”. Her latest book “Difficult Pleasures” has been listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. “Difficult Pleasures” is a collection of short stories in the form of a montage of characters who go about their busy lives in big, anonymous metropolitan cities – Mumbai,Bangalore,Calcutta. Anjum Hasan casts a spell on these characters and they bare their deepest, darkest emotions to the readers. There is rebellion and disappointment, love and melancholy and the reader experiences the intimate emotions of her characters. Hasan delves into the emotional spaces of the characters and bares all without any inhibitions leaving one with more questions than one had bargained for. 

DW’s WomenTalkOnline had the opportunity to speak to her: