One Story, Thirty Stories
An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature
Edited by Zohra Saed and Sahar Muradi
Foreword by Tamim Ansary

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

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, Seesaneh,” 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.
Some are veteran writers, such as Tamim Ansary and Donia Gobar, but others are novices and still learning how to craft their own “story,” their unique Afghan American voice. The fifty pieces in this rich anthology reveal journeys in a new land and culture. They show people trying to come to grips with a life in exile, or they trace the migration maps of parents. They navigate the jagged landscape of the Soviet invasion, the civil war of the 1990s and the rise of the Taliban, and the ongoing American occupation.

Zohra Saed is a doctoral candidate in English literature at the City
University of New York Graduate Center. Born in Jalalabad, she
immigrated with her family to Brooklyn at the age of five. Her poetry and essays have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, including Shattering the Stereotypes, Voices of Resistance, and Cheers to Muses.

Sahar Muradi was born in Kabul and raised in New York and Florida. She received her M.P.A. in international development from New York University and her B.A. in literature from Hampshire College. She is cofounder of the Association of Afghan American Writers.

November
6 x 9, 290 pages
$24.95 paper
ISBN 978-1-55728-945-2
$65.00 (s) unjacketed cloth
ISBN 978-1-55728-946-9