The ancient land and the modern nation of Afghanistan are the subject of Louis Dupree's book. Both in the text and in over a hundred illustrations, he identifies the major patterns of Afghan history, society, and culture as they have developed from the Stone Age to the present. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Publié au profit des femmes journalistes afghanes, et du magazine féminin afghan Malalaï, cet ouvrage est un témoignage pudique sur la vie quotidienne des femmes à Kaboul, un an après la chute du régime Taliban. Roshanak BAHRAMLOU a développé une approche artistique inédite, empreinte de poésie et d'espoir, qui souligne la détermination des Afghanes à aller de l'avant et à participer à la reconstruction de leur pays. Détermination immense malgré les difficultés. Alors les photographies noir et blanc, peintes à la main, s'animent de couleurs vives, éblouissantes. Scènes d'intérieurs, traditions, famille, bonheurs et peines... Une mosaïque d'instants uniques saisis au vif, métaphore subtile de la condition de ces femmes qui surgissent des ténèbres pour redécouvrir peu à peu les couleurs de la vie.

The authors of oral literature in the Pashtun language create their work at a far remove from any books. Generally deprived of the support of schools and universities, their compositions are inseparable from song. Their poetry is never declaimed; rather, their rhyme and rhythm have melodic value. These popular improvisations do not exalt mystic love. In them there is no aspiration whatsoever to an unfathomable and incommunicable heaven, nor devotion to the lord, nor praise for an absolute master, nor any Adonis. To the contrary, they are songs of the earth. They celebrate nature, mountains, rivers, dawn and night’s magnetic space. They are songs of war and honor, shame and love, beauty and death. The repression of Afghan women has caused untold suffering, particularly through moral subjugation. Infant daughters and their mothers are received with scorn and shame, and lead lives of subordination and humiliation. Their rebellion against these tribal codes comes only through suicide and song. Translated from the Pashtun into French by the eminent Sayd Bahodine Majrouh, the greatest Afghan poet of the twentieth century, his text has been rendered into English in the expert hands of Marjolijn de Jager of the Translation Department at NYU.