The Woman on the Bus
THE WOMAN ON THE BUS TELLS THE INSPIRATIONAL STORY OF AN AFGHANI TEENAGER WHO ESCAPED THE TALIBAN AND, AFTER EIGHT HARROWING YEARS THAT TOOK HIM TO INDIA, MALAYSIA, AND PRISON IN INDONESIA, WAS WELCOMED TO CANADA.
a memoir by Shams Erfan
Shams Erfan does not know the name of the woman on the bus who saved his life in 2014 when the Taliban threatened to shoot him – for teaching English. Why was a fifteen-year-old doing that? Because the grown-ups were afraid to, and he was sure it had to be done. Besides, he needed the money to help support his family. He never went home to his village again.
A smuggler in Kabul sent him to Australia via South Asia. He put Shams on a plane to New Delhi. That was followed by a treacherous journey by sea to Malaysia, then four years of imprisonment on Indonesia. There he fended off despair by teaching English to his fellow inmates and acting as an interpreter and reporter on the conditions endured by refugees. He founded a literary magazine, and never stopped lobbying for the refugees’ release.
Along the way he discovered the complicity of the Australian government and the International Organization for Migration in the misery of the refugees (see the attached scholarly article, “Outsourcing Control”), and published constantly on the breaches of human rights and living conditions of the refugees (see his Publishing History, attached).
Ten years after he escaped death, now 25 and living in Toronto, Shams Erfan continues to write about the fellow prisoners he left behind, and to do all he can to help them. Through the generosity of Australian donors and the kindness of Canadian sponsors, he and others are able to create new lives for themselves. If all goes as planned, his siblings will join him in Canada by the time this book is published.
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ABOUT SHAMS ERFAN
Shams Erfan, now 25, fled his village in Afghanistan in 2014 when he was 16 because the Taliban tried to kill him for teaching English. He has not seen his family since. He escaped first to India, then Malaysia and Indonesia, where he spent almost four years in detention camps. There he taught English, acted as an interpreter and reporter, founded a literary magazine, and lobbied for the refugees’ release. Eventually, after Shams spent eight years on the run and in prison, people in Australia and Canada helped him to come to Toronto in 2022. Since then, he has resumed his education and worked on behalf of refugees.