The Last Free Women

The extraordinary account of The New York Times's effort to save hundreds of lives during the 2021 Afghanistan evacuation, highlighting four exceptional young women who, having escaped the fate of their fellow countrywomen back home, now face the challenges of forging a new life in a new land, a new language, and a new culture.

Kabul; August 15, 2021. It was supposed to be Marwa’s first day back at medical school. After more than a year of the pandemic’s isolation, here, at last, was a cause for celebration. She set out her books and ironed the dress specially chosen for the occasion. But when she awoke that morning, giddy anticipation quickly gave way to panic and fear. The streets were thronged with desperate crowds, everyone pressing in the same direction. The Taliban were coming. They had only hours to get out. On the radio, an announcer intoned the names of the provinces that had already fallen. Marwa had gone to bed the night before with a vision of a whole future ahead of her. Now she had only minutes to pack, wondering how she could condense everything she’d ever known into a single backpack. 

Efforts to evacuate the group were taking place as Rebecca Blumenstein was driving her son cross-country to college. As a top editor of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, she had been deeply involved in managing the foreign correspondents the paper sent to war zones. Now, as the lives of their Afghan Bureau employees and their families were imperiled by the Taliban’s swift resurgence, she played a pivotal role in coordinating their evacuation, in the end securing the relocation from Afghanistan of more than 200 people, 124 to the US—the largest privately sponsored group of refugees in modern American history. She then led their resettlement into their new life in the U.S. 
 

Though each is navigating different circumstances and dreams, these four brave, remarkable women—Marwa, Mursal, Maryam, Samira— are united in their desire to make the most of the opportunity they have been given. Stories of hope and resilience, setback and struggle, ambition and joy, The Last Free Women grapples with what America owes those who seek freedom on our shores, and how they, like generations of immigrants before them, will remake what it is to be American.