Dr.

Nadia Hashimi is a Maryland-based pediatrician, best-selling author of four novels,

politician, and mother of four. Outside of her medical day job, Hashimi draws on her Afghan
culture and heritage to create compelling stories about Afghan women.
Drawing on her activism for women’s rights and affordable healthcare, Hashimi ran for state
office in 2017. She released her latest novel, Sparks Like Stars, in March 2021.
Hashimi is a member of the US-Afghan Women’s Council. She is a board member of
the Aschiana Foundation and Sahar Education organization for Afghan children and
girls. Hashimi also advises the education and leadership organization Kallion.

Nadia Hashimi publishes fiction best-sellers

Hashimi published her first book, The Pearl that Broke its Shell, in May 2014. The
novel follows two Afghan women who face similar challenges despite being separated by a
century. Hashimi published her second novel, When the Moon is Low, in 2015. A schoolteacher
in Kabul must flee with her children after the Taliban rises to power.
“I came into writing in a most unexpected way,” the author told Kimmery Martin. “I was a
cheerful pediatrician working in a busy emergency room in Washington, DC. Plus, I was an avid
reader who felt compelled by the strength and resilience demonstrated by Afghan women…
writing, like medicine, demands attention to the human stories around us.”
A House Without Windows (2016) follows Zeba, a wife and mother who is blamed for the
murder of her husband. Zeba befriends the women who have stayed in jail for safety and
protection and meets an Afghan-American lawyer. The pediatrician also published two
children’s novels: One Half from the East (2016) and The Sky at our Feet (2018).

Nadia Hashimi: the Doctor and Politician

A pediatrician by training, Hashimi earned her MD in Brooklyn, New York. She completed a
residency at NYU and Bellevue hospitals before relocating to Maryland. Beginning in
2008, Hashimi worked for five years in the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington,
DC. She was in the emergency department.
In 2011 Hashimi started managing her husband’s neurosurgery practice. She became Vice
President and Practice Manager at the Center for Brain & Spine in Maryland.
In September 2017, Hashimi launched a congressional campaign with Maryland’s 6th
District. Hashimi advertised her expertise as a physician to address healthcare concerns in the
state.
“The central problem with our healthcare system is that there’s far too much money going into it
and not enough results – or meaningful results – coming out of it,” Hashimi said in an interview
with The Methods Man blog. “On either side of the aisle, all of us are in agreement that the
soaring costs of healthcare need to be addressed.”
Hashimi’s campaign ended with the Democratic primary in June 2018.

Nadia Hashimi’s Afghan background

Hashimi was born in 1977 in Queens, New York. Her parents emigrated from Afghanistan in the
early 1970s, before the Soviet invasion. Hashimi and her brother grew up in upstate New York
and New Jersey.
The granddaughter of an Afghan poet, Hashimi’s mother traveled to Europe for
her master’s degree in Civil Engineering. Her father studied aviation engineering before leaving
to find better work opportunities in the US. After the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. Hashimi’s parents decided to dtay in the U.S. Her father bought a chicken
restaurant franchise and owned several restaurants.
The physician earned a B.A. in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from Brandeis University in
2000. She holds an MD from the SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn.
Hashimi’s husband, Amin Amini, is a neurosurgeon and Afghan refugee. He left Afghanistan at
the end of the Soviet Occupation at 17 years old. They have four children.

Nadia Hashimi publishes Sparks Like Stars

Hashimi published her latest novel, Sparks Like Stars, with William Morrow in March 2021.
She is “always on the lookout for a good story that highlights humanity and the indestructible
spirit of women,” the author told Kimmery Martin. “I think the most critical piece to becoming a
writer is finding that story that absolutely must be told.”
Sparks Like Stars begins in Kabul in 1978. 10-year-old Sitara lives a comfortable life as the
daughter of the Afghanistan’s progressive president’s right-hand man. When the
communists stage a coup, Sitara’s entire family is murdered. She grows up to be a surgeon after
being smuggled out of the palace and into America. Thirty years later, the man who both saved
her and who may have assassinated her family, shows up in her examination room in New York.
““Suspenseful…emotionally compelling. I found myself eagerly following in a way I hadn’t
remembered for a long time, impatient for the next twist and turn of the story,”

Fawzia Koofi was a member of peace negotiation team representing Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

Fawzia’s political family background and orientation to public service propelled her to take hold of the
new opportunities that were paving the road for many women. She decided to run for a seat in
parliament from the Badakhshan province, she was elected Member of Parliament from that province in
September 2005, right after the first elected parliament after 33 years, Fawzia was elected as the first
woman Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament in the history of Afghanistan, in 2010 she run for second
time to parliament and won by a majority and not based a quota, she chaired parliament standing
committee on women and human rights from 2010- 2019.
She was the member of and president of IPU’s committee on Human rights of parliamentarians from
2016-2019. After completing her baccalaureate degree, she entered a competitive medical school. But
soon after the Taliban took over in September 1995, and barred women from access to all education!
Finding the doors of a university education closed to her, Fawzia focused her energy on women’s right
organizations, and worked closely with one of the most vulnerable group such as Internally Displaced
People (IDP), and marginalized women and children. She continued working with UNICEF Afghanistan on
women and children's rights especially back to school, Reintegration of Child soldiers and Child
trafficking . She holds a bachelor's degree from Kabul University law and political sciences faculty and
her Master on International relations and Human Rights from Geneva School of Diplomacy, from Geneva
City.

Some of the key women’s initiatives that she has championed include the improvement of women’s
living conditions in Afghan prisons, by approving resolutions, with her efforts a commission to work on
the issue of violence against children is established, the commission was chaired by Afghanistan first
vice president. She tabled many progressive laws protecting women and children including law on
violence against women, anti harassment law on women and children, child act and contributed to laws
that ensures protection of Human rights for citizen. With her support and influence the gender budget
was established in the national budget. She promoted women and girls’ education, by advocating for
access to good schools, as well as creating opportunities for non formal education for out of school
children in her constituents, Badakhshan province.

She is the author of letters to my daughters and the favorite daughter book which is her auto biography.
She has been titled as BBC 100 women, Young global leader by World Economic Forum, fearless mind of
2013 by times magazine, 50 great leaders by fortune magazine in 2021 and many more. She has been
awarded many prestigious awards including women of knowledge, Minerva, Casa Asia diversity,
Champion by Pet Tillerman foundation, Human Rights champion by Middle East Institute, Anna
Politkovskaya, Women in War award and many more.

She is the leader of a newly established political party called Movement for Change in Afghanistan.
Taliban put her under house arrest as soon as they captured Kabul, she eventually managed to flee
Afghanistan. Since her flee from Kabul, she has travelled across the world to meet world leaders, Human
rights Organizations and Civil Society activists to keep the focus in Afghanistan in terms of Humanitarian
and Political crises, especially the repression of women and girls. She continue to lobby for full
protection of women’s rights and warn the world leaders on the security consequences of ignoring
women and people of Afghanistan. recently forced to leave Afghanistan due to security challenges, She
was recently nominated for the Nobel peace prize which is a great accomplishment.

Fawzia Kofi Koofi Fauzia Kufi, daughter of Abdul Rahman was born 1976 in Darwaz District, Badakshan
Province. She was the 19th of 23 childen in the family. She was born to an illiterate mother and a distant
father with seven wives. Her father served as a senator during king Zahir Shah’s reign. The mujahideen
killed her father, an MP for 25 years, before the 1979 Soviet invasion. She got married 1997 to Hamid
Ahmadi, a chemical enigneer and a Professor at a university. Her husband died in 2003 of tuberculosis
he had contracted in a Taliban prison, leaving her to look after their two daughters.

She has a masters in the Dari Language and political science, and has worked for UN agencies in
Badakhshan. Kofi obtained a master’s degree in Business Management from the University of Pakistan in
Islamabad. Currently (2012), she is taking evening classes at the Law Faculty at Kabul University.
Koofi, Afghanistan’s first female parliament deputy speaker, tells her heartbreaking life story and,
through the letters she writes to her two daughters, shares her hopes for their future, which are
interspersed throughout the book. The unwanted 19th daughter of an MP of Badakhshan—one of the
country’s poorest, wildest, and most remote provinces—Koofi learns early on how difficult it is to be
female in Afghanistan’s patriarchal society, where wives of poor rural farmers are considered less
valuable than the goats they tend. She grows up among her extended family (until her father’s
assassination in 1978 results in her eventually moving to Kabul with her mother and becoming the first
girl in her family to attend school). Set against Afghanistan’s war-torn history—the invasion of the
Soviets, the mujahedeen’s civil war, the brutality of the Taliban—Koofi’s amazing life reveals itself in a
series of candid chapters. Coming of age as the Taliban takes control, she’s forced to interrupt her
medical studies and witness her country’s regression to the “Dark Ages.” She flees to her native
province, eventually becoming an MP in Hamid Karzai’s new government, where she represents the
same people her father did. Highlighting the resilience, values, and culture of the Afghan people, this
moving narrative provides an evocative portrait of a battered country as it pleads with the world’s
powers not to abandon the fight and risk the government’s fragile stability. (Jan.)

Malalai Joya was born on 25 April 1978, in the Farah Province, in western Afghanistan. Her father was a
former medical student who lost a leg while fighting in the Soviet–Afghan War. In 1982, when she was 4
years old, her family fled Afghanistan to live as refugees in neighboring Iran. She got involved in
humanitarian work while in eighth grade.

"I started working as an activist when I was very young, grade 8. When I started working amongst our
people, especially women, it was so enjoyable for me. I learned a lot from them, even though they were
not educated. Before I started, I want to tell you, I didn't know anything about politics. I learned from
people who were non-educated, non-political people who belonged to a political situation. I worked
with different committees in the refugee camps. I remember that in every house that I went everyone
had different stories of suffering. I remember one family we met. Their baby was just skin and bones.
They could not afford to take the baby to a doctor, so they had to just wait for their baby to die. I believe
that no movie maker, no writer is able to write about these tragedies that we have suffered. Not only in
Afghanistan, but also Palestine, Iraq…The children of Afghanistan are like the children of Palestine. They
fight against enemies with only stones. These kinds of children are my heroes and my heroines."[10]

— Malalai Joya, 5 November 2007

Joya returned to Afghanistan in 1998, during the Taliban's reign. As a young woman she worked as a
social activist and was named a director of the non-governmental group, in the western provinces of
Herat and Farah.[11] She is married, but has not revealed the name of her husband due to fear for his
safety
Joya gained international attention on December 17, 2003, when as an elected delegate to the Loya
Jirga convened to ratify Afghanistan’s constitution, made a brief speech in which she criticized her
“compatriots” as to why they were bringing the legitimacy of the Loya Jirga into question by including
the presence of criminals, and that they instead should be put on trial for their crimes. By criminals she
was referring to the former Mujahideen leaders who fought against the Soviets, and were also present
in and participating in the Loya Jirga.

Since then, Joya has repeatedly referred to the former Mujahideen as criminals and warlords and has
asked for them to be removed from the government and punished for what she states are “war crimes”
against the people of Afghanistan. Well known Afghan figures such Mohammad Yunis Qanuni, speaker
of the Wolesi Jirga, and Mohammad Ismael Khan, former governor of Herat and current a member of
Hamid Karzai’s cabinet have been targets of Malalai Joya’s verbal attacks in the media. Ismael Khan is
considered by many Afghans to be a hero for his fight against the Soviet invaders and the way he rebuilt
Herat after the war was over. While Kabul was in chaos after the Soviet war, Herat had a booming
economy, and Ismael Khan had built schools, parks, and drastically improved the lives of Afghans in the
province.

Joya has not only been openly critical of Afghanistan’s government, especially it’s elected Mujahideen
members, but the United States as well. In an article she wrote for the US based, The Nation, published
on October 7, 2008, Joya wrote: “US and NATO forces kill more Afghan civilians than enemies of Afghan
people. Thousands of innocent Afghan women and children have been killed in the US/NATO
operations.” In the same article, Joya also wrote: “My suffering people have been well and truly
betrayed over the past seven years by the US and allies. They were invaded and bombed in the name of
democracy, human rights and women’s rights…” She ended the article with this: “Afghan people today
believe that the United States is willing to put us in danger as long as its own regional and economic
interests are met. Because years of conflict in Afghanistan have raised political consciousness, people
here hold the United States responsible for pushing Afghanistan to its current tragedies.”

Since her suspension, Joya has done numerous international media interviews and public appearances
in the west, speaking against former Mujahideen which she refers to as warlords, and voicing her
opinions on Hamid Karzai’s government and the United States, and what she sees as their utter failures.
She has even won various human rights awards, such as the Anna Politkovskaya award which she
received on October 6, 2008 in London. However, there are many Afghans that are very critical of Joya.
She is seen as politically unsophisticated. Some wonder if her attacks on various former Mujahideen
members are ethnically motivated. She has even angered many by accusing Afghan officials of using
Islamic law as a tool to limit the rights of women in Afghanistan.

Malalai Joya was born in 1978, and is married, but with no children.

In 2010, Time magazine placed Malalai Joya on their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the
world. Foreign Policy Magazine listed Malalai Joya in its annual list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. On
March 8, 2011, The Guardian listed her among "Top 100 women: activists and campaigners".

ince 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Malalai Joya has received more than 520,451 page
views. Her biography is available in 27 different languages on Wikipedia. Malalai Joya is
the 17,133rd most popular politician (down from 14,895th in 2019), the 132nd most popular biography
from Afghanistan (down from 98th in 2019) and the 93rd most popular Afghan Politician.