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Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2094-6752

Abstract

The question of how perpetrators of violence are identified, represented and understood has become a central concern of Perpetrator Studies, an interdisciplinary field that emerged in the early twenty-first century. This article analyzes The Poetry of the Taliban in a bid to examine how the selected poems construct and negotiate multiple figurations of the perpetrator rather than presenting it as a singular or fixed category. While the poems frequently identify perpetrator through recognizable political, military and ideological structures, they also reveal the complexities involved in reducing the perpetrator to a clearly identifiable form or kind. In exploring these tensions, the study engages with Michael Mann’s perpetrator typologies, where he discusses nine kinds of killers, in The Dark Side of Democracy, and also refers to Ann Keniston’s views regarding the impossibility of reducing the perpetrator to a stable category. In doing so, the study foregrounds the importance of poetry as a critical medium, through which perpetration of violence, with reference to lived experiences and ideological formations, is articulated and preserved. The selected poems are not merely aesthetic expressions, but they also serve as sites of testimony that provide insight into how a particular nation and community perceives violence, portray perpetrator and negotiates its own position within a broader geopolitical framework. The study, thus, raises questions on the essentialist categorizations or kinds of perpetrator with special focus on the cultural imaginary of the Afghan Taliban. It also emphasizes the role of literary texts in offering alternative, situated understandings that challenge dominant and homogenizing theoretical frameworks.

Submitted: April 13, 2026

Accepted: June 1, 2026


The author extends his appreciation to Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia, for funding this research work through project number (PSAU/2026/R/1447).

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