Nadia Anjuman
نادیا انجمنA young poet of Herat whose one book, of ghazals written under and after the Taliban, made her a symbol of Afghan women's writing.
- Known for
- Gul-e Dudi (Dark Red Flower), 2005
- Forms
- Ghazal
- Places
- Heratهرات
- Collection
- Contemporary
Nadia Anjuman was born in Herat, the old Persian cultural capital of western Afghanistan, in 1980. Under the first Taliban government, when girls were barred from school, she was one of a group of young women who met in a sewing circle, the Golden Needle, that in fact served as a secret literary class led by teachers from Herat University.
After 2001 she studied literature at Herat University. Her collection Gul-e Dudi, Dark Red Flower, appeared in 2005. It is made up mostly of ghazals, the classical lyric form, which she used to write about confinement, silence and a woman's longing to speak, in a language at once traditional and her own.
She died in Herat in November 2005, aged 25, after a violent assault at home. Her death drew wide attention abroad, and her poems have since been translated and read widely as a voice of Afghan women's writing in Persian.
Anjuman's poems are in copyright. We publish them only with permission from the rights holders; until then we write about the work.
Booksکتابها
The principal works of Nadia Anjuman.
Dark Red Flower
گل دودیHer only collection published in her lifetime, mostly ghazals in Dari Persian. The poems speak of enclosure, grief and the wish for a voice, and turn the conventions of the classical lyric into a young woman's account of her own life.
Nadia Anjuman in Iranian history
Iranian historyThe Pahlavi century and afterدوران پهلوی و پس از آن
Two Pahlavi shahs built railways, universities and a centralised state, while poets, novelists and film-makers created a new Persian culture. The era ended with the revolution of 1979.