Paranda
Paranda is a three-year partnership between KfW Stiftung and Untold to enhance the craft of creative writers working in Dari and Pashto, as well as to develop a network of local Afghan women writers and those living in the diaspora.
Paranda is a virtual space where these writers share skills, knowledge, and life experiences with their peers. It consolidates Untold’s active – but so far informal – online community of women writers, established through its Write Afghanistan project.
The political upheaval of 2021 has meant many Afghan writers have resettled in other parts of the world, yet the Paranda network enables them to continue working as a group.
Left to right: Lissa Evans, writer and producer, Elise Dillsworth, literary agent, Kate Mosse, best-selling novelist and founder director of the Women’s Prize Trust
Paranda activities
Paranda writers work with international and Afghan literary editors and translators to hone their craft and generate short stories, non-fiction and longer works for commission and publication internationally in translation, and locally in original languages, wherever possible.
Every month a literary editor, agent, publisher, or author joins us (in person or online) to talk to writers about their work. Speakers have included writers, Gillian Slovo, Leila Aboulela, Aliyeh Ataei, Ingrid Persaud, Kate Mosse, and poet Shazea Quraishi; publisher, Katharina Bielenberg; literary agent Elise Dillsworth; plus, editors Malu Halasa and Aunohita Mojumdar.
The Paranda Book Club selects a book in Dari or Pashto to discuss virtually, each month. The group’s book choices have included The Stranger by Albert Camus, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak, and novels by Afghan writers, including Another City by Spozhmai Zaryab.
Publications
My Dear Kabul: A year in the life of an Afghan women’s writing group
My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird: New fiction by Afghan Women
Rising After the Fall: Afghan women share their stories
New writing
We Have the Flying Wings| Critical Muslim
In Reading, We Resist| The Markaz Review
A Chapan the Height of Noorjan| Words Without Borders
Tongueless Speaker| Words Without Borders
Bagri Creative Writing Award
We are pleased to launch the Bagri Creative Writing Award, the next phrase of our partnership with the Bagri Foundation.
After four years of supporting Untold’s Write Afghanistan project and the Paranda network alongside KfW Stiftung, the Foundation will continue to support three selected writers from the original cohort on their latest journey. The Bagri Creative Writing Award gives them the opportunity to work with an international editor and a literary translator on an ambitious piece of long form original fiction or non-fiction in Pashto or Dari.
The writers were selected by Untold’s editors based on their writing potential, the fact that they are based in Afghanistan without opportunities to develop their work and their ongoing commitment to Untold’s writer development programme, 2019-2024. The award for the three writers, all based in Afghanistan, includes mentoring for an aspiring literary translator in Pashto and Dari, an area of real need in the international literature sector.
Weiter Schreiben partnership
For the fourth year Untold has partnered with Weiter Schreiben, a literary platform based in Berlin, for authors from war and crisis zones. This collaboration offers writers from Paranda an opportunity to be commissioned and published in German.
15 of Untold’s writers have now taken part in Weiter Schreiben’s letter exchange programme, where an Afghan woman writer is paired with an established German author, for an exchange of letters, emails and mentorship. These exchanges are then published in German.
The Untold-Weiter Schreiben partnership is supported by KfW Stiftung.
Helen Wolff Grants
In September 2022, 19 of Untold’s writers were awarded Helen Wolff grants to support their work. The grants were set up by descendants of Helen & Kurt Wolff to support politically persecuted women writers. These grants were administered by Weiter Schreiben and Untold’s writers were the first to receive them.
The grants helped these writers to buy laptops and encouraged them to keep writing.
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