National Network for Equitable Library Service

Tells the story of a family's desperate attempts to escape Afghan warlords, Taliban oppression, and the persecutions of refugee life, in hopes that both their sons and their daughters could dare to dream of peace and opportunity. And behind the scenes, there are the unflagging efforts of one of Canada's most respected journalists, Carol Off, working assiduously to help the family achieve freedom and a promising future. In 2002, Carol Off and a CBC TV crew encountered an Afghan man with a story to tell. Asad Aryubwal became key to their documentary on the terrible power of thuggish warlords who were working arm in arm with Americans and NATO troops. When Asad publicly exposed the deeds of one particular warlord, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, it set off a chain of events from which there was no turning back. Asad, his wife, Mobina, and their five children had to flee their home. Their only chance for a peaceful life was to emigrate--yet year after year of agonizing limbo would ensue as they were thwarted by a Byzantine international bureaucracy and the decidedly unwelcoming policies of Stephen Harper's government. Carol Off's powerful account traces not only one family's journey and fraught attempts to immigrate to a safe place, it also illustrates what happens when a journalist becomes deeply involved with the people in her story and is unable to leave them behind.