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Love and War in Afghanistan
By
Alex Klaits & Gulchin Gulmamadova-Klaits
Klaits is an American who has served multiple tours in Kyrgyzstan through the Peace Corps; spouse Gulmamadova-Klaits is a native of Tajikistan who has also served in aid organizations. In April 2004, two weeks after their marriage, the two traveled to the northeastern Afghanistan provinces of Kunduz and Takhar to collect stories of love. Most of the accounts came in Dari, in which Gulmamadova is fluent. What is remarkable about what they found, and what makes this collection ingenious, is the way that the 23-year-long civil war emerges indirectly from every tale of love—requited, unrequited, passionate, chaste, familial, extra-familial, arranged, delayed, tragic, random—and the parallel psychic burdens love and war place on the tellers. Recounted in the first person with just a name (often changed) as heading, the narratives read like compelling blog entries and cover a wide range of ages, education levels and occupations. They are frank (but not graphic), often wonderfully digressive, and are told by equal numbers of men and women. It\'s difficult to imagine a more welcoming entry into northern Afghan culture, or a more touching set of relationships formed, and maintained, under horrific circumstances
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