Letters From Afghanistan Reveal Elegant Heritage

Library Offers Look Into Afghan Culture

• By Daniel Newhauser
• Roll Call Staff
• Feb. 25, 2010, Midnight

Nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan has seared into America’s consciousness stunning images of explosions among jutting auburn peaks and humble turban-clad peasants nursing their wounded. Still, for most of us, the struggle seems a world away. For Afghans, though, those images are reality. But their world, their culture, is much more than just the fighting. And perhaps because this seems long forgotten, they document their lives in droves of letters they send to the popular short-wave radio station, Radio Free Afghanistan, locally called Radio Azadi.