Set internationally and spanning two decades, Annisa is an intricate portrait of a young Afghan girl's struggle to survive after the Soviet invasion in 1979. Her harrowing escape to America, and her fatal decision to return to her people in Afghanistan, evokes insight into a society torn apart by terrorism, drug smuggling, and bitter conflicts over the role of its women. Her friendship with a Russian deserter and a volunteer American doctor dramatizes the different forces in her life. But it is her love for a captain in the Afghan army that drives her. The novel ends with the bitter events of 9/11, and the role Annisa's fundamentalist and Western-educated brother may have played in that tragedy.