SAFE Interview with Nancy Hatch Dupree

There is a very informative, not to say moving, interview with Nancy Hatch Dupree who has been living in and engaged with Afghanistan for many years ( Joanie Meharry and Shaharzad Akbar, 'Knowing Nancy: An Interview with Afghanistan’s Grandmother, Nancy Hatch Dupree' SAFE December 30, 2012). In this time she:

has stood as an emblem of the country’s rich and ancient cultural heritage. A force in her own right, her strength has been cemented in her singular, unwavering commitment to the culture of Afghanistan before, during, and after the more than thirty years of war. Arriving in Afghanistan from the US in the 1960s she fell deeply in love with the country, and not long after, the renowned Harvard archaeologist, Louis Dupree. Together they worked side by side, him studying pre-historic sites and her writing numerous guidebooks. With the great loss of Louis in 1989, Nancy re-doubled her commitment to their work. She expanded the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University (ACKU), a rich source of regional information, which Louis had established in Pakistan before his death and which she moved to Kabul University in 2006. In 1994, Nancy founded the Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage (SPACH) in Islamabad in order to organize international efforts to protect the National Museum of Afghanistan during the Mujahideen Civil War. 

The video, “Who is the Historian?,” is available on YouTube and Kabul at Work.