In Afghanistan, women’s bodies and voices have become a battlefield, a ground on which Taliban power exercises control that erases freedom, the future, even the possibility of imagining life elsewhere. It is from this reality that No Woman’s Land was born, the new book by Kiana Hayeri and Mélissa Cornet, set to be released in November 2025 with a launch at Paris Photo. But let’s retrace the genesis and development of this important project.

The project took shape in 2024, when the Iranian-Canadian photojournalist and the French researcher traveled across seven Afghan provinces to meet over a hundred women and girls. Their stories, intertwined with intimate and powerful images, paint a collective portrait of a daily life behind closed doors: forbidden schools, inaccessible parks, institutions surviving only in the shadows, mothers watching their daughters relive the same story of deprivation. Added to this is the silence imposed on those belonging to the LGBTQI+ community, whose existence is denied before it is even recognized.

No Woman’s Land is a moving archive: alongside Hayeri’s photographs are polaroids, drawings, archival materials, and works created together with Afghan teenage girls. A visual and narrative montage that becomes both a historical document and a testimony of resilience.

The project was made possible thanks to the support of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award and, before becoming a book, it found space in international exhibitions and publications, receiving awards such as the World Press Photo Award and two recognitions at the Pictures of the Year International.

Kiana Hayeri is no stranger to works exploring identity, adolescence, and migration in contexts of conflict, and with No Woman’s Land she confirms her ability to transform reportage into a visual language capable of both empathy and denunciation. Mélissa Cornet, for her part, brings years of field research as a scholar of Afghan women’s rights, enriching the book with texts and materials that provide historical and political depth.

The result is a precious editorial object, published in a 268-page hard slipcase, designed to withstand time and convey the complexity of a present at risk of being forgotten too quickly. Available for pre-order at shop.nowomansland.com, No Woman’s Land is a testimony that delves into the urgency of the present, demanding that we do not look away.