Parvana

Parvana by Deborah Ellis


Wrote with passion and longing for a country left behind. For a country that once had beauty, freedom, and peace. Deborah Ellis writes with simplicity and takes us to a different world. A world torn by war. Taken through the view of innocent eyes, we entake on a journey that not even a man should go through.

The book is an award winning novel. But having already read the kite runner, Parvana, proves as a less intense, yet still as beautiful a novel, portraying a feminine view of a world so different from ours. Whilst the Kite runner was a novel of friendship, betrayal and caste, Parvana presents a different view. It shows the love for a country, a family. The pride a little girl has. The forgotton past. The hardships of day to day life. And the supressal of feminity, expression and freedom.

Whilst the story is elegantly intertwined within the words and feelings of a young girl. The simplicity and innocence of the girls narrative has an immense impact on the reader's view. We are the judge. We are left to take the side. Uncritically, Deborah has told her story.

The hopeful yet unspoken, unfinished ending leaves a hindering hope that as Parvana finds her family, maybe one day Afghanistan, too, will find its lost past free of external or for that matter internal regimes.

The patriotism for the country is incredible. Deborah speaks through Parvana to let us know, whoever invades Afghanistan, will inevitably face the same defeat. 'They will be kicked out'.

A child, Parvana, squabbles wiht her sister, and refuses to do chores as any ordinary girl. But she is no ordinary girl. She is the warrior. And this becomes starkly evident as the girls dig up bones in the graveyard. The lost childhood of the girl is highly disturbing.

The unspoken question of whether it is right to leave such a beloved country behind, in moments of crisis, is symbollically represented though the character of Parvana's friend.

Having loved THe kite Runner, this is an Australian equivalent from a different perspective. It equally paints a picture of Afghanistan that has been torn apart. A simple read, with a simple narrative, through a simple girl, depicting the extroadinary lives of extroadinay citizens in an extroadinary country.