Soldier Trent Reedy steps up to help an Afghan girl
His 'Words in the Dust' evokes the life of a girl with a cleft lip. He helped her get surgery and promised to tell her story.
Trent Reedy, a former Iowa National Guardsman, is pictured with Zulaikha, the Afghan girl who is the subject of his book "Words in the Dust." (Trent Reedy / March 8, 2005)
January 24, 2011
Trent Reedy was an American soldier providing security for the reconstruction of Afghanistan when he saw her. The girl was 13, her cleft lip so deformed that her teeth stuck out straight from her mouth. Her upper lip was split in two. Her nose was distorted.
Shock was Reedy's reaction when he first saw the girl he came to know as Zulaikha — a girl who became the inspiration for, and centerpiece of, his debut young adult novel, "Words in the Dust." Based on Reedy's real-life experience helping Zulaikha get the corrective surgery she needed, "Words in the Dust" is a striking and beautifully told story — one that is unusual not only because it is by a first-time author, but also because it's told from Zulaikha's point of view.
It's difficult enough to write authentically about a foreign culture. It's even more difficult to write from the perspective of another gender. Yet Reedy, who was 26 when his contingent of the Iowa National Guard was deployed to a combat zone in the Western province of Farah, felt compelled to write about her.
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