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In Afghanistan, says Latifa, the author of this moving and honest account of growing up under the Taliban, "we survive with a kind of economy of emotions". For in the atmosphere of fear and despair created by the Taliban, emotions churn under the surface all the time, but "we always have to ask ourselves who's who and if they really are who they say they are".

MY FORBIDDEN FACE GROWING UP UNDER THE TALIBAN: A YOUNG WOMAN'S STORY By Latifa Virago/ Penguin Price: £6.50 Pages: 180

Recent months have seen the appearance of a number of books on Afghanistan and the Taliban. None, to my knowledge, gives us the view that Latifa's story provides: a perspective from within in the voice of a young woman (all of 16 at the time the Taliban took over Kabul) who has grown up under the harsh shadow of violence.

Latifa describes a life (pre-Taliban) that is "normal" for most middle-class teenagers-jeans and trainers, pretty clothes, good food, movies (most of them from India), romance novels. Women in burqas are the object of innocent fun for these youngsters to whom they look like bottles. They giggle at a joke about a Japanese man who goes home and recounts that in Afghanistan men are very strange-they walk about the streets holding bottles by the hand.

One single day of violence-in which the bodies of the president and his brother are found hanging in the street-changes all that. How, asks Latifa, can this happen? Why did this happen? What purpose is served by the Taliban killing a young boy for clandestinely watching a film on video? Why should they beat women in burqas who make the mistake of wearing white (the colour of the Taliban) shoes?

EXTRACT

There’s a knock on the apartment door. I recognize its brusque insistence. It signals a clandestine patient and says as clearly as words, ‘Open up quickly. Shelter me. I don’t want to be seen.’ To be seen? Who recognizes a woman beneath a burqa? But fear among women is now so prevalent that it’s become second nature. Fear of meeting a neighbour, of answering a question. We’re suspicious of everything. I open the door to a brown burqa. The woman pulls it off as soon as the door is shut. Her face is swollen, her lips puffed and bleeding. She doesn’t need to speak. I lead her to the living room where my mother examines her ...

Nor is the Taliban the only perpetrator of violence. Latifa recounts how her mother, a trained nurse-sick with despair and depression now-was punished for protesting against the malpractices of a Soviet superior, how the continuing violence in Afghanistan all through her young life, has three times destroyed her father's business, and how much worse the situation is for those who do not have the kind of privilege that she has.

But even in the midst of such violence, and of the despair and lethargy created by it, there is bravery and resistance. Latifa's mother provides medical help in secret to women who suffer violence and rape at the hands of the Taliban. She and her friends protest when one of them is arrested for throwing off her burqa. These are the moments that provide the oxygen which enables young and old to live in a situation where you must remain prisoner in your own home, and even there, you fear violence and reprisal for the most minor violation of the new code.

This is a brave and moving account that resonates with the experiences of women caught in violent, warlike situations in many parts of the world. Latifa's parents fear for their daughters, they worry that their son might be drawn into fundamentalism, her father worries for her mother, his own business. How much worse, Latifa tells us, is the situation for women who have no source of income and who cannot now go out of the house to earn for fear of being killed.

In the end, the young Latifa leaves the country for France-on an important mission, but with a heart laden with grief and despair. A new home in France doesn't take away the longing for the old. When, finally, the Taliban is ousted, she cannot believe the laughing faces of women on the television screen.

This brief, important account tellingly reminds us that this is the hidden face of war; it is in these seemingly small arenas that the real, long-term consequences of war are played out. It is for this that this book needs to stand alongside the many others on Afghanistan, and on war in general. For without understanding this important dimension to the conflict, it will be difficult to move towards peace. It is fitting that it should be a young woman who reminds us of this.