Journey Of Hope - Fall 2018 Journey of Hope 2018 | Page 25

DEBORAH ELLIS
is an award-winning
author, a feminist
and a peace activist.
Deborah penned the
international bestseller
The Breadwinner,
as well as many
challenging and
beautiful works of
fiction and non-fiction
about children all over
the world. Her most
recent book is Sit, but
she has more than
thirty books to
her credit.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Central Asia Institute.
HW: You wrote the first book
in the series about 18 years ago.
Obviously, a lot has happened be-
tween the writing of the book and
now. What elements of the story
are still, in your mind, pertinent
to current events?
DE: I think the destruction
of war is still a burden that
Afghanistan, and gosh, way too
many places are carrying right
now. It takes very little time to
blow stuff up, but a lot of time
to rebuild it. I think Afghanistan
is still dealing with the old ideas
people cling to in times of trou-
ble, such as the idea of women
as property. So, of course, child
marriages are still a big problem.
Not enough girls are in school.
FALL 2018
That’s still a huge prob-
the kinds of resistance
Recently
adapted into
lem. I mean, there are
that was going on in
a film, The
places and situations
Afghanistan, trying to
Breadwinner
that have been hugely
get aid to people and
received a
improved but there’s nomination for education to girls and
Best Animated
still a long way to go.
try to alleviate suffering
Feature at the
HW: What do you 90th Academy within the very strict
wish you could have
confines of the rules.
Awards.
shared with readers, or
I really wish I would
viewers, that you weren’t
have put more of that
able to include in the book or the in there, because it’s pretty as-
movie?
tounding what people did in that
DE: I think if I were writing The time and still continue to do.
Breadwinner again I would in-
HW: Anything else you’d like
clude more about how Afghan our readers, our audience, to
women, and some of the men know or to be thinking about?
there are working really hard DE: The thing that I always tell
to try to subvert the difficult kids when I do school talks is
laws of the Taliban. I would put that war is not a natural oc-
more information in there about curring phenomenon. It’s not
a volcanic eruption or a tornado.
It’s something that we humans
create and if we create it we can
also choose not to create it. We
can choose to do better things,
and I think we’re at a time where
we’re starting to make that shift.
Where people are beginning to
be kind of embarrassed to have
their governments taking part
in war. This doesn’t take any-
thing away from the courage
of the people who represent
their governments, but it’s also
this sense that there’s got to be
a better way that we can relate
to each other around the world.
And I think we’re turning in that
direction. I really think we are. l
JOURNEY OF HOPE | 23