Bookish Love of two schoolgirls

A heartwarming real-life story of two sisters who loved books in life, and in death.

Very often we come across stories that leave us spellbound and make us question humanity.

One such story is of two cousins Marzia and Hazar Mohammadi. At 16 years of age, they dreamt of becoming architects and writers like any other teenager. But their dreams were cut short by a blast at the Kabul Education Centre in September 2022. When they were buried next to each other on the outskirts of Kabul, the family members also buried some of their favourite books with them.

After their death, their family found many diary entries written by both of these youngsters about their dreams for a beautiful future. It included things like meeting bestselling author Turkish author Elif Shafak, visiting the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and eating pizza among many others. Their uncle happened to share some of these pictures with his thoughts on social media, which then went viral.

Initially, the siblings of these two cousins used to drop books on their graves. Soon they found strangers leaving books there too. Some in Persian, some in English, some new, and some used. With the number of books increasing daily, the siblings decided to construct a library dedicated to the sisters next to their graves.

With an artist pitching in to design the murals of the shelves carved from an old cupboard, this library is left unlocked most of the time. Just to provide uninterrupted access to the two dozen books it holds within. Just their way of showing how much they loved books that even in death, they chose to be surrounded by them.

You can read the original story HERE.

Editor_Kitaab

Namrata is a published author who enjoys writing stories and think pieces on travel, relationships, and gender. She is a UEA alumnus and has studied travel writing at the University of Sydney.

She is also an independent editor and a book reviewer. Her writings can be found on various sites and magazines like the Asian Review of Books, Contemporary South Asia Journal of King’s College-London, Mad in Asia, The Friday Times, Daily Star, The Scroll, Feminism in India, The Brown Orient Journal, Inkspire Journal, Moonlight Journal, The Same, Chronic Pain India and Cafe Dissensus.

Her short stories have been a part of various anthologies . She has also published two short story collections of her own along with two solo titles as well. She is currently working on her debut novel. She loves travelling the length and breadth of the world and enjoys capturing the magic of life in her words. She is always in pursuit of a new country and a new story.

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