Afghan women’s pain is powerful enough to fill theatres—but not airwaves

Reflections on the British theatre debut of Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, and the silence beyond the stage.

The opening of a powerful new production of ;A Thousand Splendid Suns,’ Khaled Hosseini’s spiritual sequel to The Kite Runner at the Birmingham Rep theatre,

There’s a strange feeling that washes over you when your country becomes a backdrop, a stage, a metaphor—anything but real. Yesterday, I found myself in Birmingham at The Rep theatre, watching the opening stage adaptation of A Thousand Splendid Suns, based on the novel by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini—brought to life under the sharp and tender direction of the brilliant Roxana Silbert. I was invited to sit beside the remarkable minds behind the production. The theatre was packed—at least a thousand people, their faces illuminated by the drama unfolding on stage. But as I sat there, what echoed more loudly than the applause or the dialogue was a quiet, gnawing discomfort.

Afghanistan, after all, has long been reduced to theatre. Sometimes literal, sometimes political, often both. And while Hosseini’s debut novel The Kite Runner arguably put Afghanistan “on the map” for much of the Western world in 2007, it also did something else: it carved out a genre. A kind of soft-core trauma tourism where the tragedies of Afghan people, especially women, are consumed as spectacle. It’s easier, I suppose, to empathise from a distance—through fiction, through curated pain, through stories that end when the lights go down.

But A Thousand Splendid Suns does not let you look away. It drags you—gently, then mercilessly—into the claustrophobic, collapsing world of Mariam and Laila. On stage, their lives unfold under the boot of the Taliban, yes—but also beneath the roof of a marriage so violent, so degrading, that it left many in the audience unable to breathe. The brutality was relentless. The darkness, suffocating. Watching Mariam’s dignity chipped away, Laila’s body broken, their minds stitched together by survival—it was almost too much. Women flinched. Men sat stiff-backed. Sniffles turned into silent weeping. Clutching the arm of the person next to them. It wasn’t just moving. It was gutting. And yet, in that moment, I felt—oddly—observed. As if I too were part of the exhibit. The woman from Afghanistan in Row B, there to quietly confirm that this pain was, in fact, real.

So, I brought along reinforcements—my cousins. British-born Brummies from the TikTok generation, whose cultural diet tends to come in 15-second chunks. I wasn’t sure how they’d take it. But they sat there, riveted. No scrolling. No zoning out. Just attention. When the lights came up, they said they loved it. There was something hopeful in that. Something rare.

Afterwards, I spoke to a few people in the audience. One woman told me it was the best book she’d ever read. “It spoke to me,” she said, “as a woman.” And I believed her. It’s hard not to feel shaken by Mariam and Laila’s stories. The violence they endure. The small, ferocious rebellions. The quiet solidarity. For many women, regardless of background, there is a note of recognition. Something ancient. Something intimate.

But here lies the contradiction: we feel heartbreak watching it. They feel heartbreak watching it. And yet, it's still not an issue we’re willing to shout about. Not in the streets. Not in policy rooms. Not even in most of our conversations. Afghan women’s pain is moving enough to fill theatres. But not enough to fill the airwaves. Or to influence decisions made in London, Washington, or Brussels.

And perhaps that’s why the play’s most chilling moment wasn’t the Taliban’s entrance—but a line delivered by Rasheed, the abusive husband. He defends the Taliban’s decision to ban girls' education. “If you leave your Kabul bubble and Tajik mentality,” he tells Laila, “you’d realise that in the East and South of Afghanistan, women have always lived this way. They’ve never had rights.” His justification is grotesque precisely because it’s familiar. I’ve heard versions of that line in real life. On panels. In briefings. The idea that the Taliban are not a rupture, but a reflection. Not an aberration, but a norm.

Laila’s response was swift, sharp, and perfect: “That’s savage.”

And yet, that very savagery has become a rationale. A way of explaining it all away. That women’s rights are relative. That for some women, oppression is cultural, expected—even deserved. These justifications have long crept into the polished language of Western policy too. That it’s too complex, too traditional, too risky to intervene. That women in Afghanistan have always lived this way, and always will.

That, too, is a form of violence.

As the play unfolded, I found myself thinking about the stories that haven’t yet made it to the stage—or the page. While Hosseini’s novels are beautiful and evocative, they are fiction. And fiction, by its nature, offers both truth and distance. Where are the real voices? The non-fiction accounts of Afghan women—intellectuals, rebels, artists, survivors—whose lives don’t fit the mould of Mariam or Laila, but whose stories are just as urgent, if not more so?

The global obsession with women of Afghanistan has created a strange paradox: we are everywhere, and yet nowhere. Our suffering has inspired couture runways in Paris, impassioned monologues at the Oscars, slogans on protest placards, and soft-focus documentaries narrated by Hollywood royalty. We've become the face of NGO fundraising campaigns and the backdrop to UN Women’s annual photo ops. But our actual words? Our real histories? They remain largely unheard. Silenced. Oversimplified. Translated into bite-sized, palatable fragments for Western consumption—stripped of their complexity, their context, their inconvenient truths.

Walking out of the theatre, I overheard a couple whispering, “I didn’t know it was that bad.” I bit my lip. It is that bad. But it’s also so much more. There is beauty. Resistance. Wit. Poetry. Complexity. We are not defined by pain alone. Which is why, as powerful as this play was, it left me thinking about what still isn’t told—and who gets to do the telling.

I’m grateful that Hosseini’s work continues to reach new audiences and that this play has brought Afghanistan’s story to so many. But it also reminded me how urgent it is for Afghan women to shape their own narratives—through fiction, storytelling, and art that is bold, layered, and imaginatively ours. Not as exoticised subjects or sorrowful heroines, but as writers, creators, and cultural producers of our own making. Because while the global appetite for our pain seems endless, the patience for reading about it in policy reports or non-fiction books is not. There are too many crises competing for attention.

People want stories that stir them, move them, stay with them. They want art, not analysis. Afghan women must be supported not only to write but to craft novels, screenplays, theatre, and television that translate generations of inherited pain into something the world will actually sit with—something consumable, yes, but also meaningful. And perhaps, just perhaps, transformative.

There are so many stories still waiting to be told—stories of defiance, survival, and everyday brilliance—but we need the space and support to tell them. Afghan writers are still carving out room for themselves in English, still learning how to translate not just language, but emotion, memory, and inherited silence. They are still trying to be heard. But finding a voice is only one part of the journey. The world must be willing to mentor, to guide, to make room—not to speak for us, but to help shape the conditions so we can speak for ourselves.

Because if we don’t tell the story, someone else will. And too often, they already have.

And just a final note, to the remarkable cast and crew: thank you. I want to send all my love and best wishes for the run ahead—and for the tour that follows. Next stop: Leeds Playhouse. Then Nottingham Playhouse. May every audience leave as uncomfortable, as moved, and as quietly furious as I did.

NOTE TO READER:

History has always been taken from us — written by them, for us. The real stories were never recorded. Or worse, erased. My writing is an attempt to bring back to life what the history books left out.

I write these pieces without funding or institutional support, but out of a need to reframe — and reprogram — how we see places like Afghanistan. Not through the lens of war, but through the lives, stories, and histories that rarely make it to you. As a woman from Afghanistan and an aspiring historian, I’m building something that doesn’t yet exist.

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But most importantly, I hope you’ll read, reflect, and share — because history belongs to all of us.