Chosen: The Girl with Green Eyes is about Zarghona, an Afghan girl with green eyes, whose village is destroyed by Soviet bombing in the 1980s. She is among thousands who hazard the border crossing to Pakistan and disappear into vast refugee camps. A photographer, attracted by Zarghona’s unusual eyes, chooses her for a magazine cover, changing her life forever.

Forty years later, Zarghona arrives in Rome, fleeing for fear of the Taliban. The chosen girl takes cover again, leaves family behind, suffers guilt about them and frets about their fate, feels disoriented in new surroundings. These are the seasons of her life, repeated like daily prayers, salat; sad recitations known only to refugees. The reader follows Zarghona walking over the mountains, down the alleyways of refugee camps, in the maze of village lanes, along the pilgrims’ way at Mecca, across the roads of Kabul, and now through the streets of Rome. This story is rich in the history and culture of a country on the world news and everyone’s lips in August 2021.

The story of the girl with green eyes is also the story of Afghanistan.

ISBN: 979-8838462008