| Popis: |
Overlooked by many as mere propaganda, the poetry of the Afghan Taliban offers unparalleled insight into the organization s wider worldview. These two hundred poems, bound together in this collection, draw upon both Afghan tradition and the nation s recent past, and seamlessly connect with the long history of Persian, Urdu, and Pashto verse. The contrast between the severity of the Taliban s ideology and its long-standing poetic tradition is nothing short of remarkable. Unrequited love, vengeance, the thrill of battle, religion, and nationalism even a yearning for nonviolence are expressed through images of wine, powerful women, and pastoral beauty, providing a fascinating perspective on the hearts and minds of Western civilization s redoubtable adversaries. Whether they are describing a wedding party annihilated by an air strike or lamenting, we did all of this to ourselves, these poems are concerned not with politics but with identity and a full, textured, and deeply conflicted humanity. Such impassioned works defeated, enraged, triumphant, bitterly powerless, and bitingly satirical ultimately endure as a record of the war in Afghanistan. Two introductory essays contextualize the anthology s poems, relating their significance to Pashtun history and their reflection of a culture inundated by thirty years of war. Faisal Devji, noted Taliban scholar, underscores the link between these poems and the Taliban s emotional and ethical character in a preface. |
