Night Letters

Afghanistan has been described as the graveyard of empires. It has proved so since the days when the British tried to colonise it. Many attempts have been made by the Soviet Union and the United States of America after 9/11 to occupy Afghanistan and install their sponsored regimes but these were met with partial success. The people of Afghanistan bore the brunt of the resistance against these empires which devastated their economy, polity, society and education. The resistance against foreign occupation still continues in Afghanistan with death and destruction happening almost daily. The book under review, by British journalist Chris Sands with Afghan journalist Fazelminallah Qazizai, describes the resistance narrative through the birth, ascendance, evolution and decline of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e Islami. This interesting study describes different trends in Afghan society and polity with the rise and active resistance politics of Hekmatyar since the late 1960s. The authors have carried out extensive and in-depth interviews with hundreds of people to build a narrative of resistance, armed struggle, dialogue and death that the Hizb witnessed through these decades.