Nadia Ghulam

Nadia Ghulam Dastgir (born 4 June 1985 in Kabul)[1] is an Afghan woman who spent ten years posing as her dead brother to evade the Taliban's strictures against women.

After the Taliban's insurgency took control of Kabul, at the age of 11 Nadia decided with her mother to disguise herself as a boy, adopting the identity of her dead brother Zelmai, so that she could leave the house alone and work to support her family.

[1] With the outbreak of renewed war in Afghanistan at the beginning of the 21st century, Ghulam's story became known to some westerners, and was the basis for the 2003 film Osama.

[4] In 2014, with Joan Soler i Amigó, she published Contes que em van curar (Tales That Healed Me), which was awarded the Mención Especial Mare Terra, and in 2016, with Javier Diéguez, La primera estrella de la noche (The First Star of the Night).

[5] In 2016, Ghulam established Ponts per la pau (Bridges for Peace), an NGO that provides language courses for migrants in Catalonia and also assists school children in Afghanistan with materials and reading assignments.