“Mothering in Afghanistan amounts to running along the sharp edge of a sword.” With this understanding, Homeira Qaderi concludes her memoir, a long, beautiful letter to the son she left in Afghanistan 958 days ago. To arrive at this conclusion, she shows the story of her life as a girl and then as a married woman. Her grandmother, Nanah-jan, believed that one of the most difficult tasks the Almighty can assign is being an impetuous, strong-willed, intelligent girl with the fate of birth in Herat, a city in northwestern Afghanistan.

Qaderi begins DANCING IN THE MOSQUE with a fanciful tale in which her brother has been rewarded for his curiosity with the gift of a jinni. Upon his demand, the jinni presents him with a black steed. Qaderi laments that she was not gifted with either a jinni or a black steed for her questions and determination. Instead, she listened to stories of monsters, wild horrible monsters that were to be her punishment for laughing out loud, wearing short skirts and arguing with her grandmother. Qaderi saw early and often the brutal disparity between the sexes as evidenced in her family, her town and her nation.

"Qaderi acknowledges her translators, Dr. Zaman Stanizai and Vanisa Saffari, and their extraordinary skill at crisscrossing two languages as well as two cultures. To this reader, her voice feels seamless and authentic."

How Qaderi went from being “a chick commander” leading a group of naked teenage girls in a bathhouse, one of the few safe places females could meet without the Taliban’s cruel interference, to becoming an exiled Afghani woman transplanted to California is told in short vignettes. Each of these pieces ends with a part of her letter to her son, Siawash. She tells him she is not dead. She tells him she loved his father very much for many years. She tells him she still wakes up during the night, at what is no longer his feeding hour, but still she awakens, fearful that she has missed it. She tells him again she is not dead.

In the chapter “Red Shoes,” Qaderi remembers a night during an intense period of fierce fighting and stuttering machine guns. One of the neighborhood kids, Mohammad, who was younger by a few years, had been begging to wear a pair of Qaderi’s glittery red slippers with sharp heels. Of course, he was shamed. Those shoes were meant for girls, and he had been told no. During the worst of the battle raging outside their home, her grandfather, Baba-jan, came to the living room from a nap. “Where is Mohammad?” They rushed to the window and there, spinning gracefully among the invisible bullets, danced Mohammad with the red shoes. As we learn later in that chapter (it is quite a surprise), his fate underscores the second-class status of women.

Qaderi does not reveal the specifics of that night to Siawash, but she does tell him about another frightening time. She learned from the American television news of an explosion across the street from a kindergarten in Kabal. Believing it to be his school, she made phone calls to find out if he was okay; she saw pictures of children but did not think she would even recognize him so many years later. When she woke up her brother at 6am his time, he told her that Siawash was safe. But then he turned on her and berated her for making the choice to leave; he was unsympathetic and compared a woman in Afghanistan to being in quicksand. The more you struggle, the more tightly you are trapped.

Each memory from her childhood to the final days when she determines that she must leave Kabal is built on mothers, aunts, grandmothers, girlfriends and women she sees on the street. Refugees from Ghor Province who traveled to escape the war settled across the river from her home. Their tents were silent and dark at night as music was forbidden, but she could hear the lullabies, sweet sincere melodies of mothers comforting their children. Mother. Her son’s first word was “Mothe,” not even the complete word; her heart filled each time she heard it. Mother. She had not wanted children early in her marriage as she had seen too many times how Afghani culture disregards women; once a mother, she felt she would be reduced to being just that. After the birth of her son, however, she learned that motherhood is just another form of womanhood.

Because of Afghani law and the overpowering culture of relegating women to second-class status, Qaderi’s life was about to change in a way that she could not condone. She was forced into the impossible choice of losing herself or losing her son. Reading the book’s final sentence is an excellent place to begin. Privileged American women will grieve with her and still celebrate her bravery.

Qaderi acknowledges her translators, Dr. Zaman Stanizai and Vanisa Saffari, and their extraordinary skill at crisscrossing two languages as well as two cultures. To this reader, her voice feels seamless and authentic.