Mud City

Mud City is set in the vast and desperate refugee camps that swelled in Pakistan following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. The invasion, a direct response to the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, orchestrated by al-Qaeda from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, displaced hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians. According to the UNHCR, by early 2002, Pakistan was hosting over 2 million Afghan refugees, many in sprawling settlements around cities like Peshawar. These camps, often hastily constructed, became semi-permanent cities defined by scarcity, squalor, and social strain. The novel vividly portrays this reality through its depiction of a camp made of “yellowish-gray mud” (10), where residents compete for dwindling resources like water, shelter, and food.

The social fabric of the camps often mirror the patriarchal structures of Afghan society. For instance, the novel’s “Widows’ Compound” (6) reflects a real-world response to protect women and orphans who had lost male family members and, with them, their primary social and economic support. Shauzia’s intense desire to escape—“I didn’t leave Afghanistan just to live in mud!” (13)—is not just a personal whim but a reaction to the tangible hopelessness and systemic poverty that characterized the real-world refugee camps, which for many became long-term prisons rather than temporary shelters.