One of the things about landays is that they thrive in a modern context. Early on I went to this incredible Pashtun novelist, Mustafa Salik, who is a….

The power of the voice in rap is about the expression of truth, rather than the expression of some kind of artifice..

The future of Afghanistan is incredibly dark, and decisions are happening incredibly quickly. Speculation is a fool's game, but I've seen many politi….

The most dangerous thing I've ever encountered was a run-in with Boko Haram around 2007 in a small town in Nigeria. I got caught along with the photo….

I was surprised by the level of sophistication of the Special Operation forces. Among them were anthropologists and PhD candidates. I felt because I ….

News isn't designed to talk about daily life in its nuances, but poetry is..

I think most good poetry is about suffering; I think that's what underlies the love in these landays pieces - suffering and longing..

The power of the voice in rap is about the expression of truth, rather than the expression of some kind of artifice. Landays, they're about love and ….

I was examining what religious identity meant in Africa. Along the edge of the Islamic world, what patterns were shaping identity? And the truth is, ….

Poetry is a popular genre in Afghanistan. If you turned on the radio, there would be a poetry program that would be as popular as The Real Housewives..

Seeing the Afghan women in their burqas, it's easy to say, "Well, they're not as fully aware as I am, so why do I have to worry so much about their p….

It's important to understand that violent Islam is only one face of violent religion..

Poetry allows me to write about what I don't know, whereas journalism demands a higher level of certainty to be worthy of being written..

In most of the world, poetry has such a different reputation than it does in Western culture..

If we think about folk forms, they belong to disenfranchised people, people who have not been allowed access to the poetry of literature or the leisu….

I worked with two young women translators. One died and the other received a death threat from the Taliban..

Islam doesn't have a monopoly on violence in Africa. And violence plays a particularly critical role in places where statehood is weak at best, such ….

If we were to see Western landay poems, we'd see them out of disenfranchised populations, maybe out of the legacy of slavery. Spirituals, rap music -….

You can't be wrong in journalism. Take a wrong turn in journalism, and you are writing fiction. You can take a wrong turn in poetry, and something wo….

The truth is, terrorism flourishes in places of injustice rather than in places of poverty..

My upbringing was pretty interesting. It was a rigorous, intellectual upbringing, but with the idea that we were a part of an important and legitimat….