Abdul Rahman Pazhwak

Among Pazhwak's teachers in Kabul were two prominent poet-scholars: Sufi Abdulhaq Bitab (1887–1969) who taught at the Habibiya High School, and Ustad Khalilullah Khalili (1909–1985), who was Pazhwak's part-time private tutor.

As a result, a lifelong friendship was forged between Pazhwak and his ten-years-senior teacher, Ustad Khalili.

At this time, the poet laureate Bitab and the equally-learned poet and diplomat Khalili were widely and highly valued for their Dari literary prose.

This was also the key reason explaining why Pazhwak, whose first language was Pashto, was able to stand out as a Dari writer whose work was testimony to the author's sensitivity to the subtleties of the Persian language.

English was taught as a foreign language at the school and this in turn played a significant role in Pazhwak's subsequent career as a diplomat.

His knowledge of English already came useful to him at a young age enabling him to read and translate into Dari the works of English language authors.

Pazhwak was particularly impressed by his superior, Allama Salahuddin Saljuqi (1895/97-1970).

A scholar, philosopher, diplomat and literati known for his active patronage of young talent Saljuqi was the President of the Press and Information Office.

He had recognized and cherished Pazhwak's independence of thinking and his self-reliant and critical approach to all things which was very mature for his young age.

Abdul Rahman Pazhwak (born 7 March 1919 – 8 June 1995) was an Afghan poet and diplomat.

He was educated in Afghanistan and started his career as a journalist, but eventually joined the foreign ministry.

Ustad (an honorific title) Abdur Rahman Pazhwak (1919–1995) came from a Pashtun household that was attached to tradition but nonetheless gave Pazhwak enough freedom to allow him to develop into a ‘free spirit’ already as a young adult.

He grew up to become not only a famous poet and writer but also a successful diplomat who was respected in the highest international circles.

Abdur Rahman Pazhwak was born on 7 March 1919 in the historical city of Ghazni, south of Kabul, where his father, Qazi (Judge) Abdullah Khan served as the provincial judge.

He spent his childhood years in a traditional family environment, living partly in his ancestral village of Baghbani, Nangarhar Province, and partly in the capital city of Kabul.

The family moved from Ghazni to Kabul and from Kabul to Khogyani District of Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan near the family's ancestral village in Surkhrud district in accordance with his father's official appointments.

Pazhwak's forefathers were descendants of a prominent Maroof Khel sub-tribe, tracing its roots to Ahmadzai tribes of the Ghilzai Confederation.

Pazhwak grew up in a traditional region inhabited by Pashtuns, where generations of Pazhwak's family were renowned as landowners, educators and public servants.

Pazhwak's father and his older brother, Judge Hafizullah Khan, were major contributors to the development of Pazhwak's character, upbringing and education.

While Pazhwak's late father Judge Abdullah Khan served as the Chief Justice of Afghanistan's Supreme Court, Habibullah Kalakni and his followers took control of the capital city, Kabul in 1929.

Kalakani rejected any kind of innovation, forced the reformist Amanullah Khan to abdicate, usurping the throne for himself.

Pazhwak's father, Judge Abdullah, joined the resistance against the usurper and amidst anarchy and chaos, Pazhwak's progressive older brother, Judge Hafizullah, was murdered in Shamali, where he had been appointed as the judge, at the hands of unknown anarchists.

At the end of Habibullah Kalakani's interregnum, Pazhwak attended the Habibia High School, which was among the first famous modern schools in Afghanistan.

The school trained a whole section of the country's open-minded educated elite in the twentieth century.

Scattered pieces of Pazhwak's first poems and essays appeared in the Afghan press in the first half of the 1930s.

At the time the young literati used various pen-names: first Wafa, then Marlaw, and finally Armanjan.

It was only towards the end of the 1930s that the aspiring young literati permanently settled for the pen-name Pazhwak which means ‘echo’ in both Dari and Pashto.

After high school, Pazhwak was designated to study medicine but felt compelled to interrupt his studies due to lack of interest in the field and the loss of his father who was the bread-winner of the family.

He decided to join the workforce, starting his career working as an English translator for the academic institution of the Kabul Literary Association, Anjuman-i Adabi-yi Kabul.

Pazhwak subsequently made a career in Afghanistan's information and press sector taking on the challenges of producing serious press work of high standards.

Meanwhile, Pazhwak and his colleagues coped with a series of intellectual restrictions that were triggered by state censorship.

During the 1950s, he became ambassador to the United Nations and served as president of the UN General Assembly from 1966 to 1967.

In a private correspondence dating from the mid-1950s Saljuqi implodes Pazhwak "not to put aside the fearless writing that is pouring out of your pen!"

During the early 1970s, he served for short periods as Afghan ambassador to West Germany and India.

In 1976, he became ambassador to the United Kingdom.

He served in that position until the 1978 Saur Revolution.

He then returned to Afghanistan and was put under house arrest.

He was allowed to leave for medical treatment in 1982 and received asylum in the United States, where he lived until 1991, before moving to Peshawar, Pakistan.

Abdul Rahman Pazhwak died in Hayatabad in Peshawar on 8 June 1995.

He was in Baghwani village off Surkh Road in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.