![Eighty-one-year old Sufi mystic and poet Haidari Wujodi sits at his desk in Kabul Public Library [Lynzy Billing/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/392A8014-edited.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
Behind the walls of Kabul Public Library, an 81-year-old poet kept the tradition and spirit of Afghan Sufi poetry alive.
By Lynzy Billing6 Jun 2021
On a crisp March morning in 2020, gridlocked cars honk noisily at a roundabout opposite a high wall, guarded by a handful of uniformed men in the Afghan capital. Behind the wall lies Kabul Public Library, a simple, three-storey brick structure constructed 55 years ago. Trapped between imposing government buildings, the library is an oasis in the chaotic capital – its corridors, run-down and dimly lit, lie silent, but for the faint chattering of guards drinking tea outside.
“Afghan poetry is both subtle and profound, hinting at notions of spiritualism, and an Afghan sense of the transcendental,” muses 81-year-old poet Ghulam Haidar Haidari Wujodi as he hunches over his desk nestled between teetering towers of books on the library’s top floor.
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