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One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature
Meet the editors and two of the writers
Friday, Jan. 14, 2011
1-2 pm NY time
10:30-11:30 pm Kabul time
see local time around the world: http://timeanddate.com/s/1y1k
==> VIA COMPUTER: Listen live or later to a recording at http://tobtr.com/s/1486065
(you can set an e-mail reminder for yourself at that link)
==> VIA PHONE: +1-347-324-5991 (you can call this NYC number by phone or Skype to listen or ask questions)
Or send your questions in advance via e-mail: saja at columbia.edu or via Twitter - @ sajaHQ
One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature
Edited by Zohra Saed & Sahar Muradi | University of Arkansas Press
ABOUT THE BOOK: Since 9/11 there has been a cultural and political blossoming among those of the Afghan diaspora, especially in the United States, revealing a vibrant, active, and intellectual Afghan American community. And the success of Khaled Hosseni’s The Kite Runner, the first work of fiction written by an Afghan American to become a bestseller, has created interest in the works of other Afghan American writers. One Story, Thirty Stories (or “Afsanah, Seesanah,” the Afghan equivalent of “once upon a time”) collects poetry, fiction, essays, and selections from two blogs from thirty-three men and women—poets, fiction writers, journalists, filmmakers and video artists, photographers, community leaders and organizers, and diplomats.
THE SPEAKERS: Sahar Muradi was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and raised in New York and Florida. She holds a B.A. in creative writing and literature from Hampshire College, and an M.P.A. in international development from New York University. In 2003, Sahar returned to Kabul to work for two years at the Afghan Foreign Ministry and at the Foundation for Culture and Civil Society. She is co-founder of the Association of Afghan American Writers and an Organizing Fellow for the Open City Project, a community-based writing project through the Asian American Writers' Workshop. Sahar lives in New York City.
Zohra Saed was born in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and raised in Brooklyn. She received her MFA in poetry at Brooklyn College. Her poetry and essays have been published in numerous anthologies and journals. Some publications include: This Day: Diaries of American Women Ed. Joni B. Cole, Rebecca Joffrey, and B.K. Rakhra (2002); Chosen Shore: Stories of Immigrants (Life History) Ellen Alexander Conley (U. California Press: 2004); Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak out Ed. Fawzia Afzal Khan (Olive Branch Press: 2005); Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith and Sexuality Ed. Sarah Hussein (Seal Press: 2006). Cheers to Muses: Contemporary Works by Asian American Women Ed. Asian American Women Artists’ Association (AAWAA: 2007); and Speaking for Herself: Asian Women’s Writings (Penguin India Books: 2009). She has performed as part of the cast of the legendary theater director Ping Chong’s Undesirable Elements in 2000 and in 2007, where the ensemble caste performed at the first National Asian American Theater Festival. The full script was published in: New York Theater Review 2008 Ed. Brook Stowe. She is a doctoral candidate at The City University of New York Graduate Center. She co-founded Up-Set Press, an indie publishing house based in Brooklyn: www.upsetpress.org
Sedika Mojadidi is a documentary filmmaker who has produced both independent films and television projects. Her film work includes two experimental documentary shorts on Afghanistan, Kabul, Kabul and Zulaikha both distributed by Third World Newsreel. Her feature-length documentary, Motherland Afghanistan, about her father's struggle to make a difference as an ob-gyn working in Afghanistan, aired as part of the Independent Film Institute's film festival. The United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) hosted national screenings of Motherland Afghanistan to raise awareness about the maternal fistulas health crises in Afghanistan and globally. Mojadidi has lectured extensively throughout the country on issues of Afghan identity, maternal health, and filming in Afghanistan.
Ariana Delawari is a multimedia artist -- a musician, actress, photographer, and filmmaker. Delawari has been traveling to Afghanistan since 2002, when her parents moved there to be part of the reconstruction of the country, making her first trip to Kabul after graduating from the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts. As a musician, she most recently worked with filmmaker/artist David Lynch on her debut album, Lion of Panjshir. Her debut album was partially recorded in Afghanistan with three Afghan elder master musicians (or Ustads) and was finished in Los Angeles with several guest musicians. Lynch produced a few tracks on the album and released it on his own music label.
The most comprehensive collection available of Afghan American writers
"One Story, Thirty Stories is exquisite documentary, a kaleidoscope of fragmented lives, losses, and attempts at re-making. The editors have assembled a collection that manages to be both literature and history, both heartbreaking and hopeful, both educational and lyrical. From the daughter of a cab driver to the daughter of an imam, from a crack dealer to a standup comic to an ambassador, the writers in this book offer not only poignant testimony but also form a who's who of Afghans in the United States. An invaluable, accessible resource for anyone who cares about what America is doing in, and to, Afghanistan."
—Minal Hajratwala, author of Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents
"From a society shredded by violence and a generation caught between Afghanistan and America, Saed and Muradi have sewn together a vibrant patchwork of memory and imagination. At turns raw and affecting, One Story, Thirty Stories is a chronicle of loss and reunion, offering a firsthand look at how communities are fractured and remade, with all the frustration and tenderness that exile evokes."
—Tara Bahrampour, author of To See and See Again: A Life in Iran and America
“An admirable achievement. . . . This is a literature haunted by catastrophe. . . . [These] writers . . . are taking that crucial first step toward absorbing the unique experience of Afghan Americans into the universal themes that inform human experience as a whole.”
—From the Foreword by Tamim Ansary, author of West of Kabul, East of New York and The Widow’s Husband
