A luminous work of narrative nonfiction set in a small village in northern Afghanistan where families have woven carpets for generations.

Living alongside the community over the course of a year, Anna Badkhen follows the lives of the women and girls whose hands produce the intricate carpets that travel across the world. As seasons pass and threads accumulate on the loom, the book traces everyday life shaped by drought, war, tradition, and fragile hope.

Badkhen writes with careful attention to rhythm, landscape, and labour, revealing how weaving is not simply a craft but a way of holding memory, culture, and survival together.

A meditation on time, work, and the fragile beauty of lives lived far from the global markets their labour sustains.