Cry, the Beloved Country

Nelofer Pazira is not ashamed to admit her fortune: "I have lived a privileged life outside the world of oppression." If she had grown up in the average Afghan home, she would never have gone to school. She would never have been able to leave the war-torn country, as she did with her family in 1989. She would never have learned English or emigrated to Canada, where the Paziras were the only Afghans in the entire province of New Brunswick. She would never have earned a college degree.

And surely Pazira would never have had the chance to...