Outspoken

Sima Samar has spent her life challenging power in Afghanistan. A pioneering doctor, she provided healthcare to women in some of the country’s most remote regions, often at significant personal risk. She went on to become Minister of Women’s Affairs, becoming one of the Taliban’s most determined critics. Born into a Hazara family and raised in a polygamous household, Samar grew up understanding the consequences of gender and ethnic inequality in Afghanistan. Forced into an arranged marriage, she was still a young doctor when her husband was disappeared by the pro-Soviet regime. In the aftermath, she faced a stark choice: retreat into safety or dedicate herself to resisting injustice in all its forms. Over decades of war, displacement, threats and exile, she has remained unwavering in her commitment to women’s rights and human dignity, building institutions, delivering care and refusing to be silenced. This memoir is her account of a life lived at the centre of Afghanistan’s most turbulent history – an intimate and unflinching testimony of courage, loss and enduring resistance.