http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/arts/newsid_1631000/1631746.stm
Thursday, 1 November, 2001, 10:08 GMT

Children's book on Taleban published

The novel portrays survival in a war-torn Kabul
A children's book about life under Afghanistan's
Taleban regime has been published.

The novel, by Canadian author Deborah Ellis, tells the
story of Parvana, an 11-year-old Afghan girl, and her
struggles to avoid beatings, bombings and starvation.

Oxford University Press, the
book's publishers, said that
the book was written before
the current conflict began
and was intended for
publication later this year or
early in 2002.

But the company said it had
been so inundated with
enquiries from parents,
teachers and librarians that it had decided to bring
publication forward.

Struggle

"The Breadwinner is a powerful depiction of life under
the Taliban regime, told honestly and directly, in a way
children will really understand," the publishers said.

The novel is aimed at nine to 12 year olds and depicts
Parvana's struggle to gather food for her starving
family.

The heroine of the book
has to masquerade as a
boy to be able to leave the
home - because the
Taleban say that women
must stay at home unless
accompanied by a male
relative.

The Afghanistan portrayed
in the book is already
devastated by war.

"Bombs had been part of
Parvana's whole life.

Refugee camps

"Every day, every night,
rockets would fall out of the sky, and someone's house
would explode," reads a passage in the book.

Ms Ellis, who is a counsellor in Toronto, has paid many
visits to refugee camps in Pakistan during Afghanistan's
20 years of conflict.

In a statement, she said: "We owe it to our children to
be honest about the world and to provide them with
material written specially for them.

The Oxford University Press expects heavy demand for
the novel.

"Our reps at bookstores told us there has been
enormous demand for books like this to help parents
explain to their children what they were seeing on
television," said marketing manager Catherine Stokes.