Taqi Akhlaqi

born in 1986 in the Afghan province of Wardak, is a writer and playwright living in exile in Germany. In the 1990s, his family fled the civil war and spent over a decade in Iran. When his homeland descended into chaos following the 2014 presidential elections, he experienced a personal turning point: during a theatre performance at the French Cultural Centre in Kabul in December 2014, a bomb exploded. Akhlaqi sustained minor injuries.

Everyday life in Afghanistan is a core subject in Akhlaqi’s prose texts. He wrote his first short story under the impression of reading Maxim Gorky’s »Grey Spectres« [1913], set in a damp cellar and portraying the life of a paralyzed boy and his mother, a prostitute and alcoholic.

Other works of world literature also inspired and influenced Akhlaqi, including those of Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Flaubert, García Márquez, Stefan Zweig, and Nietzsche. Writing under Taliban rule is especially difficult, he notes in an essay on Qantara.de: »The texts of a writer from Afghanistan are full of self-censorship, longing for freedom, worries about going to bed hungry and being able to live in safety, inner conflict, and all kinds of hardship. This may make them appear superficial and trivial to a reader from another country.«

In 2018, he published a bilingual collection of eight short stories written between 2015 and 2016, titled »Va naagahaan / Out of the Blue«. Two of the stories deal with the horrors of Taliban rule: one depicts people killed in an explosion, another tells of a man who joins the Taliban in the mistaken hope that doing so will spare his life. Akhlaqi writes in concise, sharply observant prose, approaching everyday terror from the perspectives of various protagonists. At times, he introduces anthropomorphized animals who seem more intelligent than the brutal human world around them – such as a parrot quoting Nietzsche in a story about a zoo visit. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung praised the collection: »There is no doubt that a writer of fine sensitivity and vivid imagination is at work here.«

In 2016, he received a fellowship from the Heinrich Böll Foundation; a four-month residency at the Heinrich Böll House in Langenbroich marked his first encounter with Europe and Germany. Upon returning to Kabul, he began writing a memoir about his relationship with Germany and German literature. The book, titled »Versteh einer die Deutschen« [tr. Go Figure the Germans Out], was published in 2024.

Before leaving Afghanistan, Akhlaqi worked for national and international organizations in Kabul. In 2021, he became the first Afghan writer to receive a fellowship from the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. That same year, the Taliban’s return to power made it impossible for him to return to Kabul.

While in exile in Germany, he published his debut novel »Kabul 1400« [originally written in Farsi/Dari]. In 2023, he received a fellowship from the »Weltoffenes Berlin« program sponsored by the Berlin Senate and curated an event on contemporary Afghan literature at the 23rd International Literature Festival Berlin. His play »Ohne Tee kann man nicht kämpfen« [tr. You Can’t Fight Without Tea] premiered in 2024 in both Krefeld and Mönchengladbach.

Taqi Akhlaqi currently lives in Berlin.

Last Update: 2025

Va naagahaan / Aus heiterem Himmel

tethys
Potsdam, 2018
[tr: Susanne Baghestani]

Kabul 1400

Borj Books
Teheran, 2023

Versteh einer die Deutschen

Sujet Verlag
Bremen, 2024
[tr: Jutta Himmelreich]