Anonymous and spoken, landai, two-line Pashtun poems, have served for centuries as a means of self-expression for women. Today they are an important vehicle of public dissent.
Published July 3, 2012
Over 300 members of Mirman Baheer, the Ladies Literary Society, stretch across the provinces of Afghanistan. Women write and recite landai, two-line folk poems that can be funny, sexy, raging or tragic and have traditionally dealt with love and grief. For many women, these poems allow them to express themselves free of social constraints and obligations. Five out of 100 women in Afghanistan graduate from high school; most are married by the age of 16. This kind of expression is looked down upon in society, forcing the women writing to keep their craft a secret.
Meetings of the poetry society are held in Kabul, but with 8 out of 10 Afghanistan women residing in rural areas, many women call in to the meetings. Zarmina Shehadi was one of those callers. She lit herself on fire two years ago. Her family denies her suicide, claiming that she lit herself on fire to get warm after a bath. “She was a good girl, an uneducated girl. Our girls don’t want to go to school,” her mother said. Zarmina is the most recent of Afghanistan’s poet-martyrs.
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Recently
For many Americans, Afghanistan is a country shrouded in mystery, particularly its women, literally shrouded under a burka, silent and seemingly impenetrable.
New York summer festival highlights Landay, Afghan women's folk poetry, and reporting by Pulitzer Center grantees journalist/poet Eliza Griswold, photographer Seamus Murphy.
Gateways
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Grantee
Photographer Seamus Murphy grew up in Ireland and lives in London. For over two decades, he has photographed extensively in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America. He has won seven...
Grantee
Eliza Griswold received a 2011 Anthony J. Lukas prize for her New York Times bestselling book "The Tenth Parallel," an examination of Christianity and Islam in Africa and Asia. She also...
