You’ve heard from the Longreads’ editors, now it’s the turn of our readers.
Afghanistan
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Night Raids
“A reporter returns to investigate her past and unravel the legacy of the secretive Zero Units.”
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
How rural America is failing migrants. The life lessons of soccer strategy. Moving on after the unthinkable happens. One house’s unsettling past. And a conversation between film icons. (Who doesn’t need more Nic Cage?) Welcome to our editors’ five favorite stories of the week. 1. What Happened to Rezwan Kartikay Mehrotra, Matti Gellman | ProPublica, […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
What Happened to Rezwan
“On the last day of Rezwan Kohistani’s life, he ate lunch alone.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Teeth Makers of Kandahar
Haji Muhammad Sultan owns a business in the center of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, dedicated to handcrafting high-quality dentures. Founded by his grandfather 80 years ago, the shop was a place that Sultan came as a child to learn the family craft; he became a military doctor during the U.S.-led occupation and made teeth for […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
As the World Moves On, Veterans of the Afghanistan Withdrawal Struggle to Join Them
“‘I feel like I’m still there,’ a Marine told me. ‘I feel like everything that happened, happened five minutes ago.’” Reporting for Task & Purpose, Haley Britzky spoke to 15 soldiers, Marines, and airmen who were part of the Afghanistan withdrawal mission in August 2021. It’s a difficult read, but also a raw and visceral account […]
Posted inCuration, Nonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend stories by Bushra Seddique, Simon van Zuylen-Wood, Laura Mauldin, Kathryn Miles, and Lucas Mann.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Unsettled: The Afghan Refugee Crisis Collides with the American Housing Disaster
Part of The Verge‘s Homeland series, this feature by Makena Kelly on resettlement programs in the U.S. shows what Afghan families are facing from day to day, particularly in communities of the San Francisco Bay Area where the housing crisis is dire. Ongoing support and aid comes from local nonprofits, overworked volunteers, and generous families […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Airport
Journalist Shannon Gormley weaves an astonishing narrative and beautifully written (and at times, very personal) meditation on one family’s escape out of Afghanistan as Kabul fell to the Taliban. I’d never written Asghar’s story as I’d said I would, and I’d buried the thought of contacting him, too, until foreign sections of newspapers began to […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Bittersweet Escape for Afghans From a Music School Gone Silent
“What will happen to Afghan programs like the Zohra Orchestra as the Taliban regains control of the country?”