Poetry of the Taliban by Alex Strick van Linschoten, Faisal Devji, Felix Kuehn and translated by Hamid Stanikzai, Mirwais Rahmany

This is poetry from Afghanistan.

Poetry of the Taliban by Alex Strick van Linschoten, Faisal Devji, Felix Kuehn translated by Hamid Stanikzai, Mirwais Rahmany is published by Columbia University Press. This is a Book originally written in Pashto. This was published in 2012.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780231704045E12.

Poetry of the Taliban, edited by Alex Strick van Linschoten, Faisal Devji, and Felix Kuehn and translated by Hamid Stanikzai and Mirwais Rahmany, should be described plainly as an anthology. It is also a politically difficult anthology, one that requires care rather than aesthetic simplification. The book gathers Pashto poetry connected to the Taliban, which means its value is not the comfort of endorsement, but the harder work of understanding how poetry circulates inside ideology, war, grief, propaganda, longing, and cultural expression. I would read it as a document of poetic practice under conflict, not as a neutral lyric collection. Anthologies like this remind us that poetry is not automatically virtuous. It can console, recruit, mourn, mythologize, and harden the world. That discomfort is part of why the book matters.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.