This is a work of 11 self-contained chapters, one for each day of September before the attack on the World Trade Center in New York, each containing one woman's story. The chapters reflect the broadest spectrum of women in order to reflect, by their differences, the worlds they inhabited and how the attack on 11 September affected their lives. Despite national and international policies aimed at securing equality for women, the sad fact is that throughout the world women have achieved at best an uneven and insecure equality, and in the case of Afghanistan no equality at all. With a new political and social order promised in Afghanistan, dare we hope that the situation will improve? Christopher Hilton has interviewed 11 very different women, some from the West, some from Afghanistan, to find out what the lives of women involved in the dramatic events of 11 September 2001 were like and how the attack changed their lives. In the stories that emerge we hear the voices of women whose ordinary loves were suddenly changed and who became actors in some of the most far-reaching events of the modern world.

The 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001 sent shockwaves across the world; they were the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil in US history, killing nearly 3,000 people and injuring thousands more. For those whose lives it directly impacted, the effects are enduring and deeply felt.

Women's Stories of 9/11 observes the events that unfolded from a woman's perspective. It is a series of interviews with eleven very different women - some from the West, some from Afghanistan - who each offer remarkably candid insights into their own personal experiences before, during and after the attacks. In the honest and heartfelt stories that emerge we hear the voices of women whose ordinary lives were suddenly changed, emotionally and physically, and who became actors in some of the most far-reaching events of the modern world.