![]() ![]() Soon after, the committee tasked with book review sent me a long list of questions and critiques that I had to address. He prepared the needed documentation and submitted the manuscript to the Taliban Ministry of Information and Culture to request formal permission to publish. I sent my manuscript to different publishers, but was repeatedly turned down because they found the subject too sensitive and thought that getting permission to publish it would be impossible.įinally, Ali Kohistani of Mother Press agreed to take the book. Upon returning, I started working on a book about the political rights of women within the international legal system and within Islam, which I managed to complete in about a year. Armed with these volumes, I decided to go back home and try to get back into my old way of life – surrounded by books and engaged in intellectual pursuits. I ended up spending most of the little money I had on books about human rights and women’s rights that I had never seen in Afghanistan. One day, as I walked along Enqelab Square in Tehran, I could not hold back from entering its bookstores. But I did find something that kept me going – my old love for books. I soon lost all hope that I would be able to make a living in Iran. But like my fellow countrymen and women, I faced contempt and hostility there. Evacuation was not an option for me so I decided to go to Iran, hoping I could find safe haven there like millions of other Afghans. I started searching for ways to leave the country. I donated them to public libraries, thinking that in a country ruled by the Taliban, they would be of no value to me. I, too, decided to give away all my books – all 300 hundred of them, covering topics like international law, human rights, women’s rights and the English language. He never made it out of the country he was killed in the bombing of the airport by the Islamic State in Khorasan Province. A colleague of mine – Alireza Ahmadi, who worked as a reporter – also joined the crowd at the airport.īefore he left, he wrote on his Facebook page that he had sold 60 of his books on a variety of subjects for 50 Afghanis (less than $1). People with masters’ degrees, PhDs, with multiple published books, professors, educators, medical doctors, engineers, scientists, writers, poets, painters – many learned people fled. When Taliban fighters arrived in the Afghan capital in August 2021, many of my friends rushed to the airport to try to leave, seeing no prospect for themselves in their home country anymore. Knowledge seems to be losing its value and books are no longer considered a precious possession. I, like many Afghans who worked hard to attain a good education, am struggling. It has been almost two years since the Taliban took over Kabul. ![]()
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