Books That Narrate Tales of Afghanistan

Books That Narrate Tales of Afghanistan

AGRITA CHHIBBER

Many in Afghanistan were left fearing the restoration of strict Islamic rule when the Taliban rushed into the country’s largest towns to regain political authority following the US pullout.

Most people are skeptical and unsure of what the future contains, especially women who worry about losing the fundamental liberties they have accumulated over the past 20 years, despite the Taliban’s promises of a more moderate rule and respect for women’s rights.

Afghanistan’s fiction and poetry are rarely featured in publications that attempt to explain the country’s political shambles. This reading list gives readers a glimpse into the intricate fight for women’s rights, local poetic traditions, memoirs of Afghan immigrants in the US, and the effects of the opium trade on common people.

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The Dressmaker of Khair Khana

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

The Dressmaker is a book about the tenacity of Kamila Sidiqi, a female entrepreneur during the Taliban dictatorship, and is based on a true event. Lemmon visited Afghanistan in 2005, and while there, she encountered Sidiqi in Khair Khana, a neighbourhood in Kabul’s north.

Sidiqi began covertly creating gowns when she was just a teenager to support her family of five brothers and sisters despite the Taliban’s ban on women working. Lemmon said in her introduction, “We are far more used to portraying Afghan women as victims to be pitied rather than survivors to be revered.

“Men are inevitably the main characters in most tales about war and its aftermath: the troops, the returning veterans, and the statesmen.

In her introduction, she stated, “I wanted to know what war was like for those who had been left behind: the ladies who managed to carry on even while their world broke apart.

Sidiqi’s business expanded from her sewing garments in her living room to having more than a hundred ladies working for her. The book is about her bravery and, more importantly, about a sisterhood that is unlike any other, one that is characterized by passion and laughter rather than nervousness and dread.

Load Poems Like Guns: Women’s Poetry from Herat, Afghanistan

These poems were composed after 2001 by eight female poets from the historic city of Herat, which is close to the Iranian border. The collection’s most well-known poet, Nadia Anjuman, is praised for giving classic Dari poetry—especially ghazals—a new, contemporary spin.

The majority of the other poets in the anthology are either her students or have been impacted by her writing style.

Anjuman studied literature in secrecy while the Taliban were in power and described the politically-enforced quiet in a harsh society where women had no voice.

To hide her true goal of preserving Herat’s literary history, she met with other women and notebooks in a covert gathering while also carrying weaving baskets. She was slain in a domestic assault because her husband and his family would not encourage her desire to write.

The Swallows of Kabul

Yasmina Khadra

(translated from the French by John Cullen)

In The Swallows of Kabul, four characters struggle to maintain their humanity as their city is destroyed and deaths grow commonplace.

Mohammed Moulessehoul, a novelist from Algeria, writes under the pen name Yasmina Khadra. When he enlisted in the Algerian army, he changed his name to a female one to avoid censorship.

A couple from an affluent class during the pre-Taliban era is Mohsen and Zunaira Ramat. Mohsen desired a career in diplomacy prior to the Taliban taking control.

Now that his goal has become meaningless, he explores the war-torn streets of Kabul and sees a woman being stoned for having an extramarital affair.

He unexpectedly finds himself in the crazed crowd. Eventually, when he grows sceptical of his wife, their marriage begins to suffer.

Atiq Shaukat, a jail guard, and his wife Musarrat were both raised in poverty. They are drawn to a life of jihad, but they falter in the hardships of war, falling ill and losing their faith.

West of Kabul, East of New York

Tamim Ansary

Ansary, a Kabul-born children’s author, sent his pals an email in which he discussed the 9/11 events from an Afghan point of view. He suddenly became a spokesperson for the Afghan people as his email was sent to millions of people. Ansary, whose parents were American and Afghan, moved to the US in 1964 to pursue his education.

He suddenly found himself in the midst of his long-standing Islamic upbringing and a brand-new, Westernized life. His autobiography describes how the terrorist attacks affected his life.

I conceive of it as storytelling, rather than analysis, that revolves around the events in my life that entail grief, or love, or adventure, or dealing with change, or growing up, or death,” he remarked in response to the Asia Society’s enquiry about his book.

The book reiterates that Bin Laden and the Taliban are not actually Afghanistan as it addresses the rising islamophobia in the US through a thorough investigation of Islam.

Ansary’s book, which is broken up into three parts, focuses on his childhood and family background, his travels with his younger brother through the Middle East, and his dual identity as an Afghan and an American. The book’s overarching theme is our shared humanity.

[Agrita Chhibber is from Jammu]

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