Critical Praise

"[E]ngrossing memoir … Chesler adroitly blends her personal narrative with a riveting account of Afghanistan's troubled history, the ongoing Islamic/Islamist terrorism against Muslim civilians and the West, and the continuing struggle and courage of Afghan feminists."

"A renowned psychotherapist's richly compelling memoir about how her experiences as an Afghan man's wife shaped her as both a feminist and human rights activist…Intelligent, powerful and timely."

"[F]ascinating and her insights on women’s lives in Afghanistan [are] certainly worth reading."

"No human culture compromises the rights of women more than Islam. Today over 700 million women are directly or indirectly affected by the Koran and the teachings of Mohammed. Phyllis Chesler is by far the bravest and most outspoken American feminist to address the plight of Muslim women. In this book she shares with the reader her first encounter with Islam in Afghanistan. It is a moving account of the harrowing experience of one woman who almost meets her death in a culture that could not be more alien to her American upbringing. Yet every page is laden with compassion and love for the ex-husband and his family she unwittingly joined. I recommend this book be put on the reading list of every American school."

"This is a bold book; intimate and rich in detail; as revealing a story about class, gender and religious differences as one will find. Chesler is a voice crying out for women. She had the right training. She will never stop."

"This is a wondrous, invaluable memoir and meditation on women, culture, history, and the meaning of freedom. Phyllis Chesler tells a moving story in a direct, unaffected style and is able to draw conclusions of a wider import: reflections on the complex interplay of culture, more complex than the cliché of ‘a clash of cultures.’ After fifty years of reflection, Chesler is able to distil mature and wise judgments from her dramatic experience, on the persecution and suffering of Muslim women. Chesler's own feminism really began with these experiences in Afghanistan."

"With a deft pen and a half-century of experience, Chesler revisits her brief, unpleasant, but life-changing and ultimately precious time in an Afghan harem. Although hardly the only feisty Western woman to despair at finding, on their visiting his home country, her debonair Muslim husband turned into an unrecognizably primitive tyrant, she drew unique benefits from the experience. These included finding her career focus (feminism), her field of study (psychology), her world outlook (principled liberalism) –and this marvelous book."

"In her fascinating new memoir, Phyllis Chesler offers a vivid account of landing in Afghanistan in 1961 as a young bride – and finding herself a victim and virtual prisoner of that country's cruel anti-women customs and habits. Many of the book's insights about 1961 Kabul seem oddly relevant to Kabul in 2013 – a culture that, if possible, has become even more heinous to women with the advent of the Taliban. This is an eye-opening work."

"With An American Bride in Kabul, Phyllis Chesler brilliantly brings to life the plight of so many Muslim women helplessly trapped in the prison which is Islamist misogyny. Through the eyes of her innocent and insightful Brooklyn girl, Chesler provides humanity a service—a window into the internal workings of the male-dominated Islamist familial conspiracy against women. Her story is believable because it is sadly repeated millions of times around the globe."

"I love this book and could not put it down. It is the romantic and riveting story of a young woman from the orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park, who rebelled against a sheltered life in which women were religiously dominated by men and who then traveled to Afghanistan where she saw women who were far more oppressed and who lived under conditions of polygamy, purdah, poverty, and the burqa. This book has the power to inspire a new kind of interfaith dialogue."

"I loved every second of reading Chesler's amazing book. Kudos to her for standing in her truth. An American Bride in Kabul is a very courageous piece of work and I am in awe of Phyllis Chesler's determination to tell the truth of her experience, a truth which confirms the stories of so many Muslim women. I couldn't stop reading this book and felt Phyllis's powerful words grabbing my heart and opening up the deep emotions. A must read!"

"Phyllis Chesler's An American Bride in Kabul is the most compelling autobiography I have read in a long time. It not only vividly tells us about women's lives in Afghanistan from the perspective of an American woman, but more importantly how and why American women fall into the trap of an Islamic marriage."

"Phyllis Chesler's brilliant and courageous memoir will resound in your heart and mind long after you turn the final page. Her decades of academic and professional work advocating for women who cannot cry out for themselves is a tremendous legacy: the seeds of this deep calling were sown in Afghanistan and are now recounted here in this moving and marvelous book."

"Phyllis Chesler's newest book is rich and operatic, taking us into a world few of us have known about, telling us in descriptive, historical, political, religious, and deeply personal detail things that can transform our ways of thinking and feeling about everything from interpersonal dynamics to global politics. And this book illuminates one major reason she has for decades been the insightful, ardent, tireless feminist educator and activist she became."

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