Z G07: L&L Power of Many / One: Parvana

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.

Canadian writer and political activist Deborah Ellis, whose work has been translated into 17 languages, gives her readers a realistic portrait of life for women in modern day Afghanistan under the Taliban regime in The Breadwinner Trilogy. In The Breadwinner (2001), Parvana, an eleven-year-old girl, disguises herself as a boy to earn money to feed her family after her father is arrested. Two connected novels, Parvana’s Journey (2002) and Mud City (2003), follow the plight of strong heroines Parvana and her friend Shauzia as refugees in their war torn country. Ellis has been the recipient of numerous awards including the 2000 Governor General’s Award, one of Canada's premier literary awards, for Looking for X; the 2003 Jane Addams Book Award for Parvana’s Journey; and, most recently, a Jane Addams Book Award Special Commendation for The Breadwinner Trilogy.

The Taliban remains a serious challenge for the Afghan Government in almost every province. The Taliban still considers itself the rightful government of Afghanistan, and it remains a capable and confident insurgent force fighting for the withdrawal of foreign military forces from Afghanistan, establishment of sharia law, and rewriting of the Afghan constitution.