The Pearl That Broke Its Shell

A luminous and unforgettable tale of two women, destiny, and identity in Afghanistan. Kabul, 2007: The Taliban rules the streets. With a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can rarely leave the house or attend school. Their only hope lies in the ancient Afghan custom of bacha posh. , which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a son until she is of marriageable age. As a boy, she has the kind of freedom that was previously unimaginable. freedom that will transform her forever. But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-great-grandmother Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life in the same way—the change took her on a journey from the deprivation of life in a rural village to the opulence of a king's palace in the bustling metropolis of Kabul. Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl That Broke Its Shell. interweaves the stories of these two remarkable women who are separated by a century but share the same courage and dreams.