Homeira Qaderi is an Afghan writer, activist, and educator and currently is a Radcliffe Fellow. She has written seven books in total, including Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother’s Letter to Her Son, which was excerpted by the New York Times and chosen by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best nonfiction books of 2020. This memoir, marked by courage and despair, tells the story of a son she left behind in Afghanistan. Before leaving Afghanistan, Qaderi taught at Gharjistan University, in Kabul, and worked as a senior advisor to both the minister of education and, earlier, the minister of labor, social affairs, martyrs, and the disabled. A lifelong human rights activist, Qaderi was awarded the Malalai Medal—Afghanistan’s highest civilian honor—for exceptional bravery by the president Afghanistan. She spoke with the Mittal Institute ahead of her talk, “Fiction in Afghanistan” on Friday, November 11.