Reading after the fall of Kabul – culture


(Photo: Afghan Air Authority / Afghan Touris Organization)

She was the great old lady of Afghanistan: Nancy Hatch Dupree. Whether during the civil war or during the time of the first Taliban rule, “An historical guide to Afghanistan” was still in every bookstore in Kabul. Even then it was a wonderfully old-fashioned travel book, a kind of Baedeker about a country in which there was no war at that time, where tourists were rather rare and the hippies and stoners passing through knew little about the country apart from the gram price of hashish rations. The Afghan-American Nancy Hatch Dupree, however, knew. Regional studies, history, art. Wonderful photos, compiled by a historian who knew the country and the region – India, Pakistan, Afghanistan – very well. She had written her Afghanistan book on behalf of the Afghan Ministry of Tourism, it was published in 1977. But even today, at a time when every traveler can use “Lonely Planet” or the “Rough Guide” to find their destination digitally on their mobile phones. this book is still a lot of fun. Why? Because it’s so strange and almost forever like Afghanistan itself. Nancy Hatch Dupree died at the age of 89 in 2017, she is buried: in Kabul. Tomas Avenarius

Nancy Hatch Dupree: An historical guide to Afghanistan, Afghan Air Authority / Afghan Tourist Organization, Kabul 1977, 492 pages, antiquarian

(Photo: Goldmann)

“After Afghanistan God only comes to weep” is a deeply humane, touching book and at the same time a horror trip through decades of war. Sira Shakib, German-Iranian author and director, describes the Afghan tragedy in the life of a woman, Shirin-Gol, who she met in an Iranian refugee camp, from her childhood before the Soviet invasion in 1979 to the fall of the Taliban reign of terror in 2001. Shirin -Gol has no chance of a decent life, she becomes a symbol of the fate of her country and, above all, of its women, to whom the author finally gave a voice when it was published in 2002. Your book became a bestseller worldwide. Sira Shakib initially welcomed the Western intervention as a glimmer of hope and advised NATO and the Bundeswehr on issues relating to the country and its people. If only they would have listened better. Today the book reads like a warning sign of what is in store for Afghanistan and its people: “I watch people come from a home that has never been one and return to a home that will never become one. Women, children “Men who know nothing but to be constantly on the run.” Joachim Käppner

Sira Shakib: After Afghanistan, God only comes to crying. Random House E-Book, 2001, 320 pages, 9.99 euros.

(Photo: photo book edition)

When the Taliban had to flee Kandahar in November 2001, they left behind a treasure that revealed more about them than they must have realized. In the photo studios of the city, which they have just closed – no photos! -, then opened again – ID cards! -, some of them had more personal, more elaborate portraits made and never picked them up. The German photographer Thomas Dworzak has compiled the amazing little illustrated book “Taliban” from these photos. It was to be expected that the fighters would pose for the camera with pistols and Kalashnikovs. But with flower bowls? Notepad and pencil? Some had cheap black and white shots colored, resulting in glamorous vintage effects like silent film stills. Others were grouped against the backdrop of idyllic Alpine chalets or thatched roofs. Many blackened their eyes with kohl and conjured up a delicate blush with make-up. Shoulders huddled together, held hands. They are dreamy recordings full of sensuality and male eroticism. But there is also a longing over these images, and if you will, a futility. Their cause and their consequences, in turn, were none other than the Taliban themselves. Sonja Zekri

Thomas Dworzak: Taliban. Photo book edition, Freiburg 2003, 128 pages, 24.95 euros.

(Photo: Leske)

Ahmed Rashid has his own past as a resistance fighter. Immediately after completing his studies at Cambridge University in the late 1960s, he was drawn to the hills of Balochistan, where for ten years he fought everything that he saw as disastrous for his homeland. It was an apprenticeship that Rashid paid dearly. In any case, his resistance to the Pakistani military dictatorship did not pay off. So he shifted to another business: writing. Ahmed Rashid was undoubtedly the best expert on the Afghanistan and Pakistan region, before the rest of the world became interested in it after September 11, 2001 and generated hundreds of new experts. Rashid can claim to be the teacher of all those Taliban, Afghanistan and Pashtun interpreters – the original source, so to speak. His books “Taliban” and “Sturz ins Chaos” are reference works with lasting validity. Rashid himself, who speaks at least as well as he writes, became a sought-after speaker and interlocutor in government offices, university forums and secret service circles. the New York Times once wrote that over the years Rashid had proven himself to be a “prophet of this region, but more of the Cassandra type”. His intimate knowledge of the Taliban, his personal access to all war factions and his incorruptible courage have given him lasting merit. Today, at the age of 73, he lives in Lahore. Stefan Kornelius

Ahmed Rashid: falling into chaos. Leske, Düsseldorf 2010, 340 pages, 19.90 euros.

(Photo: Fischer)

Suddenly it’s all important again. Ethnic affiliations, such as Hasara or non-Hasara. Beard length. Pick-ups. Sunglasses. Afghanistan is not only this country, the country of the Taliban, but also the time before and after, the pomegranate trees, the rose water ice, the roofs of the Wasir Akbar Khan district in Kabul. And that the world got to know the wealth of this second Afghanistan is the great merit of Khaled Hosseini. His novel “The Kite Runner” is the coming-of-age story of the twelve-year-old Amir and his Hasara friend Hassan, an epic of friendship, betrayal and reconciliation over the generations. “Drachenläufer” was published in 2003, has been translated into 34 languages, and has sold millions of copies. The country had only just been liberated by the Taliban, but what did the world know about Afghanistan? What does she know today? It may be that the characters are drawn at most medium-fine, the dialogues better calendar sayings and some scenes outright kitsch. The prejudices about Afghanistan are no more subtle, however. Sonja Zekri

Khaled Hosseini: Kite Runner. Fischer, Frankfurt 2019, 384 pages, 12 euros.

(Photo: Pantheon)

“After months of fighting an enemy hundreds of meters away, the extent of the shock of facing him at once 20 meters away can hardly be exaggerated. The Gatigal foothill is bathed in moonlight and can be seen in the silvery shadows of the holly trees he enemy fighters dragging Josh Brennan down the mountainside. He empties his M4 magazine on them and runs off to his friend. One Taliban fighter falls dead, the other lets go of Brennan, he escapes downhill through the trees. ” The laconic yet getting under your skin report by the author Sebastian Junge: “War. A year at war” describes the life, fight and death of American soldiers in the Korengal Valley, one of the most remote and exposed outposts of the US Army in Afghanistan the Pakistani border. Junge spent months there on the base in 2007; a journalist couldn’t get any closer to this war. It is a microcosm of madness and extreme violence in which the senselessness of war can already be seen. The soldier Brennan dies in the field hospital. Soon after, the US Army abandons the Korengal Valley. Joachim Käppner

Sebastian Junge: Was. A year in the war. Pantheon, Munich 2012, 336 pages, antiquarian.

(Photo: Suhrkamp)

Zinc Boys was the name of those who fell in the war in Afghanistan that the Soviet Union waged in the 1980s for reasons that are now almost forgotten. Zinc, because the welded coffins of the Soviet army were made of metal at the time, and boys, because the soldiers were often just 18 years old. Nobel laureate in literature Swetlana Alexijewitsch spoke to dozens of contemporary witnesses after the war – sergeants, nurses, pioneers, mothers – and traveled to Afghanistan as a journalist in 1986. She condensed the minutes and her own experiences into short, personal reports. The facts are correct, their composition is new. If you read Alexievich today, it is above all the details that seem to come from now: a woman dreams of flights with military planes between Tashkent and Kabul, soldiers doubt the meaning of their mission, children who were damaged by the war are in the desert beside the road. It’s not about accurate historiography, but something like a history of ideas of emotions, about what individuals experienced more than 30 years ago in Afghanistan. Nicolas friend

Svetlana Alexievich: zinc boys. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, 317 pages, 11 euros.

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