You are hereRoberta Gately, author of Lipstick in Afghanistan

Roberta Gately, author of Lipstick in Afghanistan

Start: 02/23/2011 7:00 pm

Roberta Gately has served as a humanitarian aid worker volunteering as a nurse for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Doctors Without Borders in Darfur, Iraq, the Balkans, Kenya and Afghanistan. In her debut novel, Lipstick in Afghanistan, she uses some of her experiences to write about the plight of war victims Afghanistan from the point of view of a young Afghan woman whose husband has been executed by the Taliban. Gately aims to give readers an authentic glimpse into the lives of the people in her novel which is set in Bamiyan, one of the towns where Gately served. In Bamiyan, the people speak of a long-rumored lady rebel in Afghanistan, a warrior for goodness, whose exploits are legendary. Gately pictures her as she “flies on horseback across the top of a distant mountain range, saving her countrymen from one calamity or another.” It is that mysterious figure who is the true inspiration for the story, because despite the darkness of war hope lives on in the people, and in the legend of that so-called lady rebel.