as they victimise and tear apart innocent people that they are meant to allegedly protect. This horrifying scene undoubtedly has left Fawad with a deep ‘entombed’ trauma. Brooks Boulson states that victims of childhood trauma:

Are condemned to a diminished life, tormented by memory and bounded by helplessness and fear. (Brooks Boulson, 2000, p.8)

Busfield’s depiction of Fawad and his mother make the audience feel a sense of shame as well as rage as both characters are plagued by personal trauma. Both characters are faced with the aftermath of the Taliban’s impact upon their poor and defenceless young family, and there is nothing much that can do but watch the family be torn apart in front of them. Busfield’s novel demonstrates that it is the most