A petition seeks to honor them, but critics ask if it’s about poetry or sexuality, and whether such rebels would be out of place in an august shrine to national heroes.
Tag: Poetry and Poets
Louise Glück Is Awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature
The American writer was lauded “for her unmistakable poetic voice.”
Rebel Poet Sulaiman Layeq’s Death Leaves 40 Years of Afghan Work Unfinished
He was a Marxist revolutionary and minister in Afghanistan’s short-lived communist government. But Sulaiman Layeq spent the last decades of his life writing an epic poem about an Islamist insurgent.
‘I Didn’t Know Whether to Mourn or to Celebrate’: An Afghan Reporter’s Girlhood Education
As a U.S. peace deal with the Taliban unfolds, a Times journalist recalls how a visit to one of Afghanistan’s most progressive rural schools triggered a bittersweet flashback to her own childhood dreams.
52 Books for 52 Places
Can’t make it to all the destinations we recommend? Read about them.
New Statue Unsettles Italian City: Is It Celebrating a Poet or a Nationalist?
Boasting a proud literary pedigree, Trieste is populated with statues. But none has provoked passions like that of Gabriele d’Annunzio, who inspired Fascism and briefly ruled his own state last century.
In a Quiet Corner, an Old Afghan Poet Polishes ‘the Heart’s Mirror’
For more than 50 years, Haidari Wujodi’s desk in a Kabul library has been a stop for those seeking escape from the violence outside.
A Young Life Ends After 4 Steps on Video, and Afghans Can’t Stop Watching
The Taliban bombing in Kabul that was cited as a reason to end peace talks was caught on camera, along with a man’s desperate scramble to evade death.
Simon Armitage Is U.K.’s New Poet Laureate
The role was previously declined by another distinguished poet, Imtiaz Dharker, who would have been the first person of color to hold it.
A Valentine in Uncertain Times: ‘I Kiss You Amid the Taliban’
Young urban Afghans who came of age with the liberties of the past 18 years celebrate Valentine’s Day amid fears that compromise with the Taliban could erode basic freedoms.