The Favored Daughter One Woman's Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future

As America prepares to draw down its forces in Afghanistan, this story of survival and hope from a voice of the country's most oppressed group could not be more timely. Born to the second of her father's seven wives in rural Afghanistan, Fawzia Koofi's motherwho had hoped for a sonleft her to die in the sun after birth. But despite a childhood of abuse and deprivation in a notoriously sexist society, she rose above her fate to become the first female Speaker of Parliament. Along the way, she faced the murders of her father, brother, and husband, and numerous attempts on her life. Here, she shares her amazing story, punctuated by a series of poignant letters she wrote to her two daughters before each political tripletters describing the future and freedoms she dreamed of for them and all their countrywomen. This eloquent memoir pleads for the world to recognize the politically devastating consequences if a frustrated American military relinquishes the country to the Taliban, undoing all the fragile progress of recent years.

Fawzia Koofi is Afghanistan's first female Parliament speaker and a noted activist for women's and children’s rights. She is currently a leading candidate for the presidential elections in 2014 and has been quoted by the BBC, Time, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, CNN, The Globe and Mail, and many others. Koofi was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2009. Before getting elected to Parliament, Koofi was employed by UNICEF as a child protection officer from 2002 through 2004. The mother of two girls, she lives in Kabul.  Nadene Ghouri is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. She is a former correspondent of both the BBC and Al Jazeera English

Prologue
'Just a Girl'
Stories of Old
The Mujahadeen
Running
A Village Girl Again
When Justice Dies
The War Within
Losing Her
One Ordinary Thursday
Retreat to the North
Everything Turns White
A Taliban Wedding
An End before a Beginning