Escape from Kabul: A True Story of Escape and Survival

Five Women. A Crumbling City. A Daring Flight to Freedom.

August 2021. The fall of Kabul.

Twenty years after they were defeated, the Taliban storms Afghanistan's capital, claiming every piece of land they pass and plunging the city into chaos.

For Anjali and four other women, who were all from different parts of the world and worked together at the Anglo-American University of Kabul, this moment marks the beginning of a harrowing journey. Forced into hiding, hunted for their work at the University, and unsure of whom to trust, knowing betrayal is just a whisper away, they are bound by one urgent impetus: to get out alive.

What unfolds is an inspiring story of resistance and survival, furtive phone calls, forged documents and midnight dashes through enemy territory-and the relentless courage of women who refuse to be silenced.

Searing and utterly gripping, Escape from Kabul is at once an extraordinary first-person account of sisterhood in crisis as well as a meditation on the meaning of freedom, and what it takes to reclaim agency when the world closes in.

© 2025 Harper Non Fiction India (Audiobook): 9789369896707

Release date

Audiobook: 29 October 2025