Afghanistan – a restless country
“They killed Musa.” With these words, Zia Qasemi opens his novel The Midnight Collector, which has now been published in German. “They” refers to the Taliban. Musa, at that moment in September 2001—just before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon—is a thirty-year-old man living in the small Afghan village of Zarsang.
Born with a deformity in his legs, Musa has faced a life of hardship. In the novel, he becomes a powerful symbol of Afghanistan’s recent history.
Musa is an outsider—just like the novel itself, at least within the Western literary market. Afghan literature, or books by authors of Afghan heritage, rarely find their way into European publication, let alone into German translation (as is the case here, by the translator duo Kurt Scharf and Ali Abdollahi).
This is surprising for two reasons: first, Afghanistan plays a major role in German political discourse, particularly due to the large number of refugees who have fled the country. It could be expected that interest in the country would go beyond the daily headlines.
Secondly, because anyone with even a passing interest in what literature has to say cannot easily ignore Afghan authors—such as Hussein Mohammadi’s recent outstanding novel Scheherazade’s Heirs.
Zooming in on the grass roots
Zia Qasemi, born in Afghanistan in 1975, spent many years living in Iran, where he actively promoted Afghan art and culture. He now lives mainly in Sweden, has published several award-winning volumes of poetry, and released his second novel, The Midnight Collector (original title: وقتی موسی کشته شد), in 2021 through the renowned Tehran-based publisher Cheshmeh.
At just under 200 pages, the novel is relatively short, yet it spans thirty years, telling the story of Musa—and through him, the story of Afghanistan. A country that has never truly had the chance to find peace: from the Soviet occupation, the rise of the Taliban, and the fragmentation caused by local warlords, to, finally, the looming shadow of the US invasion in the wake of 9/11.
Rather than adopting a top-down perspective, Qasemi deliberately focuses on the rural existence of ordinary, often impoverished people trying to make the best of their limited circumstances.
Told at times in a style that’s not unlike fairy tales, the novel explores themes of faith and superstition, and the human tendency to interpret the inexplicable—often due to lack of education—as signs or omens. It is about finding grounding in religion, without veering into fundamentalism.
Musa remains his parents’ only child, as they fear that any further children might also be born with physical disabilities. Reluctantly, his father decides to take a second wife, hoping to have children who would one day be able to care for him and his wife, Sultana, in old age. But during his search for a potential bride, he is caught in an avalanche and killed.
Musa and his mother Sultana are left alone. Yet they do not break under the weight of poverty, war, and uncertainty — instead, they persevere.
A critical voice even the Taliban listened to
Afghan poet Matiullah Turab has unexpectedly died. Turab saw himself as the modest voice of a tormented people—and even the extremists listened.
Musa earns a small income by venturing out to the cemetery at night, opening old graves, and collecting the bones of those long dead to sell to a trader at the local bazaar. He doesn’t know what becomes of the bones. He’s heard that many are sent to Pakistan, perhaps to be processed into gelatine. The trader isn’t entirely sure either—and since the Taliban profit from the trade, neither of them dares to ask questions.
One day, Musa hears someone say that it is the bones of the ancestors that keep people rooted in their homeland. And when his secret love—the only woman he has ever seen naked—dies, he decides he wants to stop collecting bones. More than anything, he would like to be buried beside her one day, so that their bones rest together. But giving up bone collecting would be a death sentence in itself.
A novel like Afghanistan itself
The Midnight Collector begins and ends with Musa’s death. Between those points, it tells the story of three decades in the brief life of a man born without functioning legs, who never truly stood on his own feet and had to crawl through life. He faces constant setbacks and is at the mercy of the arbitrary forces around him. Yet he perseveres, holding fast to both his faith and his dreams—much like Afghanistan itself.
The fact that Musa’s story ends tragically, with his early death at the hands of extremists, is made clear from the outset. This could be read as a note of resignation—a sense of hopelessness and despair that reflects the fate of the entire country.
But it need not be seen that way. The novel is not primarily a fatalistic story. Above all, it tells of people denied opportunities but who refuse to give in to their fate. That ultimately offers a glimmer of hope—even though, since 2001, little has truly changed for the better in Afghanistan.
„Mitternachtsammler“
(The Midnight Collector, original title: وقتی موسی کشته شد)
Zia Qasemi
Translated from Persian into German by Kurt Scharf and Ali Abdollahi
Sujet Verlag, October 2025
212 pages
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