Afghanes

'[...] By telling me the stories of their destinies, these women told me about the last twenty-five years of Afghan conflicts: the woman whose husband was executed by Russians; the one who lost hers as a result of American collateral damage; two others whose husbands had died, one killed by the Taliban, the other killed by a rocket set off during the civil war; or else this other woman, separated from her man who is locked up in Guantanamo...

When I returned from Afghanistan, given my intention to publish part of my research in the compilation Femmes du monde, I looked for an expert in this mythical country to proofread my texts, and above all, to stop me from donning the habit of the cliché-dispenser that so irked Claude Lévi-Strauss.

I found this scholar in the person of Bernard Dupaigne, a professor from the ethnology department at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Good thing I did: Bernard was amused, but also, sometimes, annoyed by a few false truths that I allowed to adorn my testimonies, and which the Afghan territory often inspires.

To compose this work specifically on my meetings with Afghan women, this time I asked Bernard to enhance my female portraits with his “age-old” knowledge of this Central Asian land that he has tirelessly explored throughout his life, with his sharp, curious and scientific gaze.'

Titouan Lamazou