Under the Sky Beneath the Moon by Mozhgan Mahjoob was published by The GOAT PoL Books in 2024

Mozhgan Mahjoob is an Afghanistan-based poet and writer whose authentic storytelling– highlighting how the supernatural isn’t just a tool for escapism, but a reflection of the real-word forces that govern lives– is a revolutionary act. Her first collection of stories, Under The Sky Beneath The Moon, is also the first of the GOAT PoL Books (The GeoPolitical Atlas of the Polity of Literature) imprint, co-edited with PS (Publication Studio) Guelph in 2024.¹

Through sixteen short stories, Mahjoob marries Afghan folklore with contemporary realism– including the presence of djinn (supernatural beings) – not merely for supernatural flair, but to represent generational trauma and the unshakeable grip of the past on the present, coupled with the impact of war, patriarchy and societal restrictions on Afghan women’s struggle for agency. 

The main character (Darya Saani) is an educated, young woman in Kabul who navigates the demands of male-dominated corporate life when her confidence is shattered by a disturbing series of events. 

Mahjoob artfully pens fleeting encounters with the supernatural and the extra-human before they disappear and recede. Like something that calls us through a fog or cloud, moving and non-visual, Mahjoob is able to write these encounters into existence, stilling spine-chilling images into words which reawaken in her readers’ minds. 

From du’as (supplications) recited by an earnest old man in the opening story, to the thirteenth short story told entirely from the perspective of a caged blue, female parrot denied freedom of flight, Mahjoob gives her characters a voice, letting the words do what they want to do– and what they have to do– to attach the world she places them in, to their place in particularity. 

It is made clear to the reader early on that the characters’ belief in a higher power (God) leads to ceaseless wonders while their trust in infinite wisdom misplaced in humans– including themselves– only leads to disappointment:²

“I gave you everything except 

What you wanted from me, 

Your wish was freedom 

But I didn’t let you be free.”² 

Most times, though, the author creates allegories that speak for themselves, unraveling further enigmas pointing to the fate of her characters. This is reflected in Darya learning a life lesson on moving past her loss and grief from a spider in her room: “[T]he spider never stopped trying, and it was never disappointed when I tore down its webs because the spider was the architect of its life.”³ 

Like the strong wind that rushes through Darya’s room, opening all her windows from the inside,⁴ Mahjoob’s text sweeps through the bodies of her characters, revealing their lives as they unfold. These stories are lived in some sense, emerging as speech and transforming into lived experience, becoming a critique of Afghan religious-cultural norms and practices while simultaneously moving each story forward. 

Sarnevesht (fate, destiny) is a recurring theme throughout the book, interwoven across all sixteen stories and knotted where the fate of characters is shared, like an energy exchanged, reflecting the rich and complex religious-cultural tapestry of Afghanistan. Sarnevesht literally translates to “head-written” (sar – head, nevesht – written) or “what is written on one’s head.” The author uses the very pen with which she writes her characters’ destinies to also carefully comb through the knots of their fates. Through this process, she unravels ghost stories—stories of being ghosted, becoming a ghost, and encountering ghosts. 

These ghosts take many forms, such as when the ghosts of certain characters’ wickedness return to haunt them after the victims of their wrongdoings curse them, or as a ‘ghost in the machine’ (e.g., social media): 

“I found you on the Facebook 

Then I couldn’t overlook  

I sent you the friendship 

After a year of hardship, 

You added me as friend 

And the waiting was to end.”⁵

The author doesn’t always untangle the knots, though, instead allowing the characters to (re)unite like two ends of a knot. This is seen when Darya—who mourns the death of an old woman at her grave in an earlier story—speaks in poetry about living in a cage to the dead parrot’s owner towards the end of the book: 

“With wide open wings 

In your forbidden sky 

She shouted freedom! 

Till the parrot had died.” ⁶

Some [cultural-religious] references remain untranslatable– like words that go silent in transit– making this book even more curious for the reader. Grounded in wonder and imagination, this collection of stories riffs on the interplay between the visible and invisible; the natural and supernatural, and the human and extra-human, blurring the line between the abstract nature of language and the concrete world it often describes. 

Mahjoob uses myth not only as a story but as a bridge to navigating the challenges of a fractured world. Under the sky, beneath the moon, the author delicately weaves together seemingly disparate elements, embracing mythical (un)certainty as a storytelling method for illuminating the timeless truths of life, death and renewal. 

1. GOAT PoL (https://thegoatpol.org/about/) is an online platform dedicated to publishing emerging writers from multiple international contexts. ↩︎
2. In a moment of surrender, a character from the first story turns to the divine, praying: “God, there is no doubt that you have the power to give and take away. If there is an illness you can cure it too. Now I know when all doors are shut, yours is always open for humankind. God! Please forgive me for the mistake that I was going to make, and give back the light to my eyes” (Mahjoob 7).  ↩︎
3. Mozhgan Mahjoob, Under the Sky Beneath the Moon (Guelph: The GOAT PoL Books, 2024), 115-116. ↩︎
4. ibid. 44.  ↩︎
5. “Then she [Darya] heard a loud whoosh and looked back. The curtains had blown into the room and the windows were all open. A strong wind rushed through the room.” (ibid. 79). ↩︎
6. ibid. 52. ↩︎
7. ibid. 116. ↩︎