Interview by friend and fellow playwright Beverly Andrews in The Middle East, March, 2011

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"We're all sitting around on a blanket on the grass as the sun goes down. AZ is reading one of the submissions for the short story contest sponsored by a German NGO. He's reading it in Dari and translating into English. His translation is exquisitely detailed--he explains all the many layers of metaphor. One of the more beautiful is the explanation of a mother pulling at the shirt of the man who is about to killher daughter, his wife. This part of the shirt, the lower portion ofthe shalwar kameez, is sacred on both men and women but especially women, because this is the part of the body from which humans are born. When you make a plea to someone in this way, the person is bound tohonour the supplicant.
"The story is only two pages long and yet it tells so much-- There are other evocative metaphors: the writer hears a dog giving birthinside a house he is observing. He imagines the dog is mourning the birth of her pup because of the terrible life it is bound to lead, and he compares this new life of a dog to that of a human being born atthis this time."