In the previous three months, she had gotten progressively worse and now she was barely able to breathe and too weak to move. She had been admitted to hospital, but everyone could see she didn’t have long to live. I had heard rumours that a man called Hamid from a district called Khawhan, which is near to our home village in Badakhshan, wanted to send a marriage proposal to me. I had never met him and knew little about him, except that he was an intellectual type and a teacher. One night, I was sitting by my mother’s bed when several Badakhshani men came to pay their respects to her. Hamid was among them. I was embarrassed, because it is not culturally allowed for a woman to meet a man who is interested in marrying her until an engagement has been agreed. And I was still only seventeen. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to get married. There was a group of ten men, and although I’d never seen him before I knew instantly which one was Hamid. He was young, with a lean body and a face that was both handsome and intelligent.
What do You think about Letters To My Daughters (2011)?
