Land of the Unconquerable: The lives of contemporary
Afghan women
edited by Jennifer Heath
& Ashraf Zahedi
University of California Press, 2011
Among the more common forms of violence inflicted
During the 18th century, the artist Nainsukh of Guler, in modern-day Punjab state, painted the story of those two legendary star-crossed lovers, Sohni and Mahiwal. During the 19th
Sitting on the floor of an ashram in Manhattan's Lower East Side, Ikhlaq Hussain tuned his student's sitar, with his fingers passing over the strings. This
They never knew you, who only recall
your smashed golds and broken reds:
those flashing conceits, tropes of a night too dark
to spell out by the fading glow of
Sitting on the banks of the Helmand,
swept by thoughts,
I watch as time flows in its currents.
It bends and twists to the embrace of centuries,
holding in its
Jawad marvelled at the intricate patterns hennaed on his wife's – his bride's, more precisely: they had just been married two days – hands. Elaborate curlicues, ornate lines
Can culture become a catalyst for development? Can a living culture – that spans seven centuries – be transformed into an engine of growth and regeneration? Can a blend of music, ritual,
