Hands at Work: Stitches of Childhood from Afghanistan

2026 Doxumentale Berlin Non-Fiction Book Award Nominee

Ahmad Shah steals apples with cousins under the moonlight and runs from the schoolteacher. He changes oil in a repair shop, makes birds from clay and dolls from wood and fabric to act out weddings. He studies how clothes are sewn, how shoes are mended, and how women stir halwa for Eid.

He watches a man's skull burst open on the street.

Selling poplar trees behind his family's back, Ahmad Shah finds the means to leave for Kabul.

Hands at Work: Stitches of Childhood from Afghanistan stays close to these moments where work, play, and risk sit side by side in the smallest acts of everyday life.