: How the Taliban takeover has hit Afghanistan’s reading culture and public libraries #IndiaNEWS “The lights are off, shelves are in disarray and dust has coated every single book,� said Zabihullah

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How the Taliban takeover has hit Afghanistan’s reading culture and public libraries #IndiaNEWS
“The lights are off, shelves are in disarray and dust has coated every single book,� said Zabihullah Ehsas, my longtime friend and mentor, describing the current state of Khushal Baba Ketabtun, a library we established together in 2012. Our efforts represented an attempt to address the shortage of Pashto books in Mazar-i-Sharif, the cultural and economic hub of northern Afghanistan.Funded by the Goethe-Institut, and holding a collection of nearly 4,000 volumes in Pashto, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, the library quickly turned into a stomping ground for the city’s intellectuals, nurturing and hosting an array of literary programmes – including literary critiques, poetry recitals and competitions, book reviews, guest speakers and anniversaries of renowned authors.Now “it has been seven months that no one has peeked into the library,� Ehsas tells me via WhatsApp. I can hear a lump in his throat. “It is painful to see the distance between people and books grow.�True.The Taliban takeover last August hit Afghanistan’s reading culture and book industry especially hard. Libraries such as Khushal Baba Ketabtun, with its highly fertile and engaging environment, went quiet. The number of book stores is rapidly shrinking, and publishers and printing houses are in a deep economic crisis, with some already closed.Squashed, neglected libraries

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