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A ‘gripping account’ of four women’s escape from the Taliban

Sep 15, 2026, 10:55am EDT
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The Last Free Women: A Daring Escape From Afghanistan and Coming of Age in America by Rebecca Blumenstein and Diana Kapp.

In 2021, when Kabul fell to the Taliban, a team from the The New York Times — led by Rebecca Blumenstein — scrambled to evacuate many of the Times’ Afghan employees and their families, ultimately relocating more than 200 people from Afghanistan to the US.

This book follows the stories of four young women from the cohort of evacuees as they acclimated to a new country, language, and culture while grappling with the loss of the world they once knew. It is a “gripping account of how refugees found peace in a new land,” Kirkus Reviews wrote. Buy The Last Free Women from your local bookstore.

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