Anna Badkhen's latest novel weaves Afghanistan's beauty and violence

[rug]

11:20 AM, June 13, 2013

Anna Badkhen's career as a foreign correspondent has taken her to war zones and conflict areas in Mali, Iraq, Chechnya and Russia. Her latest book, "The World is a Carpet," recounts her time in Oqa, a remote Afghan village.

She writes: "If one day Oqa were blown away, or a sandstorm buried it under a barchan, hardly anyone outside would know to notice."

And yet, when she wanted to tell the story of the inextricable link of Afghanistan's beauty and violence, she went to Oqa to watch the women weave.

"I want people who happen to own an Afghan carpet or who go in a dealership in New York, or Philadelphia, or San Francisco and examine and admire an Afghan carpet, I want them to remember that these were woven by hand in a village, that the entire village participated," Badkhen told NPR. "That this one carpet helps sustain the livelihoods of a lot of families, starting with the very poor weaver in Oqa to the slew of middlemen and traders who sell it each time at a markup larger than the previous markup."

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/06/13/daily-circuit-anna-badkhen

Audio at link.