Reviews

Load Poems Like Guns: Women's Poetry from Herat, Afghanistan by

bookishmillennial's review

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

Eight Herati female poets use poetry as protest against gender discrimination and injustice. Highly recommend! 

spacestationtrustfund's review

4.0

Perhaps all the more because of their troubled history, many in Herat, especially the intellectual and highly educated community, hold tightly to the city's legacy as a cultural and literary center of Afghanistan. "A society needs poets and storytellers to reflect its pain—and joy," mused Herat University Professor Mohammad Naser Rahyab in a 2001 interview with Christina Lamb. "A society without literature is a society that is not rich and does not have a strong core. If there wasn't so much illiteracy... terrorism would never have found its cradle here." [...] The vast majority of Heratis were appalled by the Taliban and their disrespect for art, beauty, books, and learning (aside from their narrow range of acceptable subjects): essentially everything celebrated by the region's poetry-infused heritage. Ironically, the word Taliban means "students," but their arrival [in 1995] forced half of Herat's students—all females—to cease their studies or go into hiding.

mselizabeth87's review

4.0

This is a wonderful and powerful collection of poems by Afghan women translated by Farzana Marie. The introduction is excellently done and gives readers a better understanding of Afghanistan history, specifically Herat. For those who are multilingual, the poems in their original state are also included with notes on their translation.