Her works include the memoir Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou (A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife; 1997)[2] based on her experience of marrying an Afghan and her time in Afghanistan during Taliban rule.

[3] Sushmita Banerjee was born in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata, India) to a middle-class Bengali family.

She first met her future husband Janbaz Khan, an Afghan businessman, at a theatre rehearsal in Calcutta[4] and married him on 2 July 1988.

[5] Although shocked, she continued to live in Khan's ancestral house in Patiya village, with her three brothers-in-law, their wives, and children.

[1] According to Afghan police, suspected Taliban forced entry into her house in Paktika on the night of 4 September 2013.

[7] Later, a spokesman for a renegade Taliban militia group announced it had killed Banerjee because they believed she was "an Indian spy".