UBC Library is proud to announce the acquisition of two databases with Afghan primary sources: The Afghan Serials Collection (Partisan Publications from the Wahdat Library) and The Afghan Central Press Digital Archive.

The Afghan Serials Collection consists of 2,500 individually digitized issues of 46 newspapers and journals published in Persian, Pushto, Arabic, Urdu and English between the late 1960s and the early 2000s. Materials include publications from the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), exiled loyalists to the deposed Afghan monarch, independent intellectuals, anti-Soviet mujahidin groups, the Taliban, as well as the minority political parties, and will be of interest to academics and the general public alike.

The Afghan Central Press Digital Archive comprises four national publications from Afghanistan: the English-language Kabul Times, and three Pushto publications Anīs (انیس, Companion), Hewād (هیواد, Homeland) and Iṣlāḥ (اصلاح, Reform). These newspapers chronicle events between 1942 and 2020, including the fall of the Kingdom of Afghanistan, the Soviet invasion, the rise of the Mujahidin and the establishment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, invasion of Afghanistan by the United States, as well as more recent events in the country.