Abdul Rauf Benava

Born Aug. 23, 1913, in Kandagar. Afghan writer, educator, scholar, and publicist.

Benava published his first work in 1934 and collaborated on the newspaper Tuluy Afgan (Renaissance of Afghanistan). From 1947 to 1951 he headed the Afghan academy Pashto Tolina, and from 1956 to 1964 he served as the director of Radio Kabul. In 1967 he became minister of information and culture. Benava spoke out against obsolete manners and customs in his collections of verses from the cycle Mournful Reflections (1957), his short story The Unfortunate Maiden, and other works. He edited for publication the divans of the Afghan poets Pir Muhammad Kakara, Rahman Baba, and Kazim Shayda. He is the author of the book A Theory of Literature (1948), the fundamental work Pushtunistan (1952), and research on the history of the Afghan people’s struggle for independence in the first half of the 18th century (such as Khotaki, 1957). Benava’s historical works won national prizes.