Wasef Bakhtari

• Name — Wasef Bakhtari واصف باختری • Born — 15 March 1943 • Birthplace — Balkh, Afghanistan • Died — 19 July 2023 • Place of death — California, U.S. • Citizenship — Afghan • Education — Kabul University • Occupation — Professor, poet, writer, linguist, historian • Title — Ustad (Professor) • Website — http: www.wasefbakhtari.com/

Bakhtari was born in Balkh on 15 March 1943. He spent most of his childhood in Mazar-i-Sharif. He attended Bakhtar School for his primary and for most of his secondary education. After his family moved to Kabul, he finished Habibia High School in 1965. He held a BA degree in Persian literature from Kabul University. He did his graduate studies in the U.S., where he received a master's degree in education from Columbia University in 1976. In 1996 Bakhtari, then a professor of literature at Kabul University, and his wife Noriajan were forced to flee Afghanistan because of the intolerance of the Taliban. They sought refuge in Pakistan. Soon after Nooria died, he remarried to Soriya Bakhtari, but with a rise in Taliban influence there as well, returned to the United States with the help of World Relief and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, which resettled them in New Port Richey, Florida. They moved to California after three months. Wasef Bakhtari died in California on 19 July 2023, at the age of 80.

For 15 years, Bakhtari worked for the Ministry of Education, writing and translating text books. In 1978, he became the editor-in-chief of Zhwandoon magazine. He had also served as a professor at Kabul University and influenced many other Persian writers and poet in Afghanistan. Bakhtari was a founder and leader of the leftist and Maoist party, Shalleh-ye Javiyd. In 1978, when the Khalqi government took power in the Saur Revolution, he was thrown into prison for two years. He left politics after he was freed in 1980.

Wasef Bakhtari is recorded with the occupation university teacher. Recorded as poet, university teacher and writer.