Love & War in Afghanistan
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- 12,99 €
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- 12,99 €
Publisher Description
Love and War in Afghanistan presents true stories of fourteen ordinary men and women living in Northern Afghanistan. In a quarter-century of uninterrupted war, the people of Afghanistan have endured foreign invasions, ethnic strife, a fundamentalist Islamic totalitarian regime, and the unending crossfire of rival warlord factions. The country remains an object of fascination for journalists, academics, and filmmakers from around the world. In the midst of it all it is a startlingly powerful experience to discover, here, the voices of the Afghan people themselves.
Young lovers who elope against the wishes of their kin; a mullah whose wit is his only defense against his armed captors; a defector from the Soviet army; a woman who is forced to stand up to gangsters in Tajikistan—their dramatic stories emerge in their own unforgettable words. Whether in the sudden awakening of mercy in a Taliban militiaman, the lingering contempt of a woman for her husband’s first wife, the pain and confusion of flight into exile, or the resourcefulness of a child who must provide for an entire family, the real focus of these narratives is the strength of solitary individuals faced daily with their own vulnerability.
Men, women, orphans, widows, widowers, Tajiks, Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Turkmens, schoolteachers, mullahs, former Taliban, mujahideen, big brothers, little sisters, captive wives, lovers in flight: Love and War in Afghanistan tells their stories, putting human faces onto a country torn by war.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Klaits is an American who has served multiple tours in Kyrgyzstan through the Peace Corps; spouse Gulmamadova-Klaits is a native of Tajikistan who has also served in aid organizations. In April 2004, two weeks after their marriage, the two traveled to the northeastern Afghanistan provinces of Kunduz and Takhar to collect stories of love. Most of the accounts came in Dari, in which Gulmamadova is fluent. What is remarkable about what they found, and what makes this collection ingenious, is the way that the 23-year-long civil war emerges indirectly from every tale of love requited, unrequited, passionate, chaste, familial, extra-familial, arranged, delayed, tragic, random and the parallel psychic burdens love and war place on the tellers. Recounted in the first person with just a name (often changed) as heading, the narratives read like compelling blog entries and cover a wide range of ages, education levels and occupations. They are frank (but not graphic), often wonderfully digressive, and are told by equal numbers of men and women. It's difficult to imagine a more welcoming entry into northern Afghan culture, or a more touching set of relationships formed, and maintained, under horrific circumstances. Author tour.