Customer Reviews

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

When American journalist Gayle Tzemach Lemmon sets out to research stories on unsung heroines that became extraordinary entrepreneurs, never did she imagine she'd come across Kamela Sediqi.

This is the incredible story of one young woman who set out to find a way out of a world of despair, and turned a war torn land of death and destruction into a private den of hope for her and her sisters, in order to save their lives from turmoil. When the Taliban suddenly storm into Kabul, life changes for the Afghani people in a frightful and restrictive manner. The take over of Kabul leaves it's happy peaceful residents turning on their heals to either secretly evacuate at night across the mountains into Pakistan, or stay and be forced to adhere to severe laws of injustice. The Taliban edict enforces women to be completely covered from head to foot, they are not allowed to go outside without a male chaperone, they must not work in the public and must only work at home. Books, education, colorful clothing, music and joy, are taken from their lives leaving only a world of darkness. Strict adherence to Muslim law and religious creed are mandatory. Evening curfews are set, Taliban spies hide in waiting, offenders are publicly beaten, jailed, or killed.

When the family funds get low, and when then level of daily violence in Kabul escalates out of control, Kamela's father leaves Kabul to get help from his family, her brother is sent to Pakistan to work. The family desperately needs food. Times get tougher and tougher but as the burden of taking care of her family weighs heavy on Kamela's shoulders, she miraculously finds a way to keep their chins up and hatches a plan to save the day, and their threatened lives.

Unable to continue with her career of teaching, Kamela seeks a way to enable the family to stay in Kabul and not starve. Her older sister is a talented seamstress and soon teaches Kamela sewing skills for dressmaking. Starting out with simple designs that bravely have her in disguise as she knocks on the doors of local tailors, she quickly gains more confidence until many orders pour in from many vendors to the point where she can't keep up. She then begins not only putting her sisters to work, but welcomes in the neighboring women to learn and assist. Before long this band of incredible women create a force to be reckoned with as the dressmaking business grows into a profitable enterprise like no other Afghani woman had ever imagined possible. Constantly working in fear that they will be caught, Kamela devises plans and programs to avoid the wrath of the Taliban and successfully becomes one the world's most fascinating self-made female entrepreneurs.

This is a riveting story of the power of determination and hope that can stem from nothing other than the power of love and family. The author shines with her execution of talented writing, a believable and endearing heroine readers won't ever forget, and a message for us all to never give up no matter how much the odds of winning seam dim. The Dressmaker of Khair Khana is surely one for the reading discussion groups and I highly recommend putting this on the top of your reading pile. Fabulous!

This is the latest in a string of inspiring and heartwarming true stories about how determination and the human spirit can literally triumph over adversity and change hundreds or thousands of lives. (Think Three Cups of Tea and its sequel.) On that level, it works well. It offers a fascinating and sometimes horrifying look at life under the Taliban, who for the most part are every bit as brutal, ignorant and fanatical as they've been depicted elsewhere. The title character, Kamela Sidiqi, is clearly a remarkable woman, and one can't help but be filled with admiration for all she achieved, particularly considering how young she was when she started the dressmaking business that sustained her family and many of her neighbors during the dark years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan. I couldn't help wondering if it has been optioned for a movie because in the right hands, it would make an incredible film.

But while I enjoyed it, that's precisely why I think it's not as successful a book as it could be. Throughout, there were leaps in time and gaps in the narrative that left me wondering what happened to this person or that and what had transpired in the interim. It's as if the author, who researched her material long after the fact, didn't have the information she needed to flesh out the narrative, so took some shortcuts, kind of hopping around and in places reducing the storyline to a series of episodic vignettes. A good editor would have caught these and worked with the author to fix them, but several slipped through, and I found myself going back to see if I'd missed something about a character. Sometimes I had, but just as often, I hadn't. Particularly toward the end she seemed to be kind of speeding up just to finish the narrative.

I really debated whether to give this three stars or four, but settled on three and a half because it is an interesting story about an amazing woman and her family. It's just that I'd have liked a little more story and substance with my inspiration.

We have come to view the women of Afghanistan as oppressed victims of the Taliban -- which they are -- but they are not just that, writes Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. They are heroes who under the harshest of circumstances have carved out a niche for themselves as entrepreneurs and activists. They have no choice, if they and their families are going to survive.

Until I read this story of Kamela, a young woman struggling to stay alive in Taliban-occupied Kabul, I had no idea of what that oppression meant. I knew that women were denied an education and forced to cover themselves entirely. But I could never have extrapolated how cruelly their lives were shut down. Gangs of "morality police" roam the streets, beating any woman whose covering reveals a stray hair, or who has lifted her chadri for a second so she can see what she's buying at the market. Women are unable to work, to go out without a male family member, or talk with anyone when they do venture out. It is risky business to walk down a street, and they cannot recognize even a friend, covered as they are from head to toe. Women are essentially cut off from society and put under house arrest.

Kamela can't bear this enforced captivity. First, she and her sisters figure out how to swap books with friends to ease their boredom. Then, she sets in motion a plan to become a seamstress, since her plan to teach has come to an end. It doesn't matter that she has never sewed! She is determined to learn; otherwise, her family will starve. Her father and brother have been forced to flee the country, as most men have in order to escape impressment or death, leaving her and her sisters without an income.

Having failed miserably at sewing myself, I am astounded at how quickly Kamela and her sisters learn to make beautiful garments adorned with intricate beading and embroidery. Kamela is a natural businesswoman, and soon she is quietly finding shopkeepers to buy her clothing and teaching other desperate women the trade. Eventually, after Taliban rule has come to an end, she catches the eye of Westerners who recognize the value of women like her to act as catalysts for change.

"Brave young women complete heroic acts every day, with no one bearing witness," the author writes. In this elegant book, Ms. Lemmon brings to light the story of one singular hero, a dressmaker who risks everything -- even her life -- to reclaim not only her place in society, but her very soul.

This book is a great case study for MBAs. Entrepreneurship can occur even in the most difficult of settings. It tells the story of a young woman who starts her own business - and expands it to hire many women, despite wars, the Taliban's restrictions on women, and a suffering economy. The men in this story are also portrayed in a positive way, fathers and brothers who helped as much as they could, even though they were in danger as well.

It was refreshing to read an uplifting book about Afghan women. Despite the difficult circumstances that this family of women finds themselves in, they find joy, fun, togetherness, and personal growth. The main character forges forward, taking on a pseudonym, to sell her dresses at the market. She pulls together the neighborhood girls to work for her, creating a cottage industry that the Taliban couldn't complain about, because only women were involved.

The writing is not the best writing you'll ever read. This is not literature; expect that you are reading a true story written in a somewhat pedestrian fashion, where the facts are more impressive than the prose. And that's OK.

As of today's writing (February 2011), 9.1% of Americans are unemployed, and everyone seems busy searching for ways to rob Peter to pay Paul. We even hear that some job-seekers have become so discouraged that they are not even looking for employment anymore, and one can only imagine how they sink into either sulking or true depression. The richest country in the history of the planet seems helpless, and the government stands by with a hammer to smash the "greedy" employers.

Who would ever have thought that a message of hope would come not from America's capitalists, but from Afghanistan's secret capitalists, the women so oppressed by Taliban rule that they could no longer attend school, work, go to the market, ride on public transportation, show their faces, speak to men, or even gather to study the Koran. The men were mostly away in the army or fled into Pakistan to avoid the Taliban. How were these women to get money even to buy food?

So, surprise of surprises--sixteen-year-old Kamela Sediqi, undeterred by the obstacles against her and working by necessity within the rules as much as humanly possible, sets to work to find ways to feed her siblings. Like all start-up businesses with an ethic of industry and quality, hers flourishes. Since the government is not even aware of the secret school and dress shop that Kamela has created in her family's home (the only place she is allowed legally to be), it cannot tax a single afghani from her. What profit she makes, she plows back into her business, making it possible for her to expand, creating jobs and training dozens of women who, hearing about her enterprise, risk their lives to come rap on her door.

Kamela, it turns out, has skills she did not know she had: a head for business, a talent for administration, the courage to take a risk, a heart for those in need, and a deep religious faith that does not become sucked into the mindset of the government. She also has a father's encouragement and a kid brother's cooperation to draw upon. The government can take away her freedom and her life, but they cannot begin even to touch these intangible resources.

Eventually, through a contact (albeit illegal) with a European woman working with the United Nations, Kamela is able to train many Afghan women beyond her own community and emerges as a modern-day Dick Whittington, the boy who, with his irrepressible cat, is said to have set London back on its feet in the fifteenth century.

Kamela's can-do attitude is sorely missing in our own country these days. One can only hope that her story will enflame the hearts of many who, like her, can stop being victims of circumstances and find ways to interface with kindred spirits to get the job done. Bravo, Kamela! You are a beacon to the world!

I'm always fascinated by stories detailing the unique trials and triumphs of women in harrowing historical periods but rarely seek them out actively. So I was very pleased to select The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon to receive from the folks at Harper to review.

The author journeys to Afghanistan to find and tell the story of women who helped ensure the survival of their families and communities during the Taliban's reign. She meets a woman named Kamela and the book focuses on the dressmaking business that she ran, along with her siblings (mostly sisters, but one of her brothers helps as an escort and with other duties), in a Kabul suburb. Kamela's family had been well-off prior to the Taliban's rule and education was highly valued for both the nine daughters and two sons. The story highlights the vast changes that the Taliban brought, noting that the county had long suffered from political struggles but that Kamela went from an involved student to being more like a prisoner in her own home. Kamela finds a need and learns to navigate the climate in order to create a dressmaking business that brings much needed money to her family and to neighbors as well.

I give the book four out of five stars. It is a story of strength and survival. The telling is very simple, although I got a little lost at times with the multiple siblings and neighbors. It is a story with a lot of hope and highlights the unique strength of women in oppressive regimes. It isn't really a political history, or even a social history. It doesn't claim to be an "average" woman's tale and I would have liked a bit more insight into how other women (esp those with less fortunate families) compared to Kamela's story, but that's probably a different book. As it stands, I'd recommend this to readers who enjoy women's history as told through an individual lens. It is a portrait of survival

The credentials of the author, number of reference cited, work put into research and credits given should imply that this book has a lot of detailed facts, explanations and analysis. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Although the main character should be admired for the work that she did (did her meeting with Condoleeza Rice come before or after she became she subject of this book?), and life under the Taliban was surely awful and scary for people in Afganistan, the writing in this book is childlike, repetitive and superficial. The timelines dont make sense and the life of the seamstresses is almost glamorised.

Read this book if you want to understand Afganistan under the Taliban, but not if you are looking for a well-written biography.

When journalist Gayle Lemmon visits Kabul, she wants to meet women and discover how they create businesses. In this book she tells the story of a heroic young woman, "Kamela," who starts a dress business in her own home.

Kamela loved school. I am particularly taken by the comments of other reviewers who contrast Kamela's desire to learn with the entitlement of students in much of the US. Kamela also had a strong work ethic. It is difficult to imagine shopping for fabric and selling the dresses under the conditions she faced. She had to be sure she followed all sorts of esoteric rules. Her brother had to go with her as she visited shops, because she risked arrest if caught on her own. She had city-wide curfews. When she did go out, she had to cover herself completely.

In reading this book I was reminded a little of the Diary of Anne Frank, a story of hiding that's probably common among people living under siege. Kamela spent her days with a small number of women. She wouldn't have the stimulation of change. She couldn't even go to a restaurant. And yet we learn that the Taliban knew what was going on. They deliberately looked the other way - as repressive regimes sometimes do - because they could benefit. One Taliban soldier ordered a wedding dress for a bride.

Lemmon's style of writing is so simple and straightforward it's almost YA. In some ways that makes the story seem even harsher. In another world these young women would have enjoyed a carefree youth.

Definitely worth reading for an insider perspective on women in Kabul and raw courage in the 21st century.

I first heard about the horrors the Taliban were inflicting on the women and girls of Afghanistan online,long before 911, through videos of the public abuse brave Afghani women were recording and smuggling out of the country. The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe only touches on the dangers faced by these remarkable young women (just teenagers themselves when the Taliban came to power), but that is perhaps a good thing in what is essentially a tale of triumph over extreme adversity. Well worth a read!

One note in particular: while The Dressmaker is not listed specifically as a book for the Young Adult market, this is eminently suitable for even quite young teens. Don't hesitate to add this to the summer reading list, use it as part of a Social Studies unit or mail it off to your grand-daughter!

Early in the book, the author points out that books about war generally focus on men - their roles, how they fought, how they recovered, how the country recovered. This book is unique, as far as I am aware, in that it gives insight into how the women survived and even thrived in the face of danger, hunger, and uncertainty in a culture torn apart.

I realized that my daughters have the luxury of saying what they want, going where they want, dressing how they want and even listening to what they want. All of these freedoms were taken away in a matter of weeks from the women of Afghanistan. Many people in this situation would drop into depression and be unable to cope. Kamela ad her family not only managed to stay in Kabul but create an entire infrastructure that sustained not only their family but an entire community of women who they gathered around them. Their love for each other and their love for their country made them attain almost unbelievable goals.

This is a story about an singularly amazing woman and but also a story about a country where devout, determined and hardworking good people survived in terrible times. I was inspired.

So why a 4 stars rating? I would have really appreciated more detail, more depth, more description. Perhaps the author is so familiar with Afghanistan and the Afghan culture that to her much of what we would see as interesting is commonplace. Having never been to the Middle East I would have appreciated a richer tapestry of background to get a better flavor of the culture, the city and the unspoken rules of the society. But the book is still a good read and I think this author shows potential.