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To Western eyes, the contradiction is mind-boggling.

In Afghanistan, a society in which women's lives were so constricted under the Taliban that they couldn't even walk unescorted down the street, some young girls enjoyed unprecedented freedom by posing as boys.

The tradition of bacha posh exists to this day. These girls wear male clothes, adopt boys' names, roughhouse with boys and enjoy privileges accorded to boys. What's more, they do it at the behest of their families and with the tacit consent of the entire community at least until they reach puberty, when they're expected to change back.

That gender-bending, cross-dressing tradition is at the heart of "The Pearl That Broke Its Shell," the debut novel by Nadia Hashimi, an Afghan-American, pediatrician, Maryland resident and mother of three.

"Basically every Afghan knows of a bacha posh, either within the family or within the community," Hashimi, 37, says over the phone from her home in Potomac. "Mobility-wise, a young boy has different access to the world than a young girl has. He can work outside the home."

The book weaves together two stories separated by 100 years. One plot, set in the early 20th century, tells the story of Shekiba, who becomes a pariah after suffering a disfiguring accident as a young girl. Shekiba toils as a servant until she is presented to the king, who uses women dressed as men to guard his harem.

The second story takes place in 2007, when the Taliban no longer were in power but still exerted enormous influence over the lives of women. It follows Shekiba's great-great-granddaughter, Rahima, who becomes a bacha posh so she can barter at market, attend school and perform other activities that keep her nearly all-female family afloat. But Rahima's days of freedom are numbered when the brutal warlord who runs the village takes a shine to the 13-year-old.

Hashimi will discuss bacha posh and other Afghan customs when she appears Wednesday at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. An edited conversation with the author appears below.

Where does the title come from?

The title was my agent's moment of genius. It's a line from a poem by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi: "Seawater begs the pearl to break its shell." I thought it was a perfect fit for a story about a girl breaking out of her shell and constraints and realizing the pearl that she is.

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Novel explores Afghanistan's gender-bending tradition