Introduction to Landays: A voice for Afghan Women

Landay: two-line "folk poems" sung in Pashto. 

Pashto: one of the official languages spoken in Afghanistan, spoken by Pashtun peoples (Afghanistan and Pakistan). 

Taliban: Islamic fundamentalist political movement. Primary ethnic group of Taliban is Pashtun. Controlled Afghanistan's government from 1996-2001. 



(Photo: from "The New Face of Central Asia" by Ambassador (ret.) Michael W. Cotter)



Main Text

Eliza Griswold's  "Landays: Poetry of Afghan Women"  (PDF version on MyMC/in student e-mail)

"From the Aryan caravans that likely brought these poems to Afghanistan thousands of years ago to ongoing U.S. drone strikes, the subjects of landays are remixed like hip-hop, with old words swapped for newer, more relevant ones. A woman’s sleeve in a centuries-old landay becomes her bra strap today. A colonial British officer becomes a contemporary American soldier. A book becomes a gun. Each biting word change has much to teach about the social satire that ripples under the surface of a woman’s life." (Griswold)

Below is a video supplement directed by Seamus Murphy, the photographer, and produced with Eliza Griswold. The first landay from our handout is performed around the four-minute mark in Pashto, then translated into English.


Pashto Landay - Afghan Women Poets from Franco Pachtoune on Vimeo.

• Let's review the handout, which includes Eliza Griswold's definition of landays and provides examples of "the social satire that ripples under the surface of a woman's life" along with the poems spoken aloud in Pashto in the video. 

• I highly recommend watching this entire video as part of your work for the forthcoming essay.