Short stories
شپېلۍ
Not translated into English
Sher Zaman Taizi · 1950
Synopsis
Very short stories from the land of the tribes, published one by one in the newspapers before being collected: the border villages, the fields, the guests one receives, those who leave and do not return. The volume contains the shortest story ever written in Pashto, three sentences, and its title is Le Champ.
Context
The volume gathers stories scattered in newspapers over the years, in the course of a career in which writing occupied only spare hours. In brief prose he treats what others treated in verse, the hardships of rural life and the upheavals of the neighbouring war, and he draws his manner from the oral tale rather than from the learned short story: hence, no doubt, the fact that one finds in it the shortest text of this literature. The whole belongs to a bilingual body of work of thirty-two titles, in which translation held as large a place as personal writing.
Who it is for
A collection of Pashto verse accessible without prior knowledge of contemporary Afghan history, but illuminated by it.
Prizes and reception
This collection contains the shortest story ever published in Pashto. Its author received a civil distinction in 2009, a few months before he died.