DUSHANBE, November 29, Asia-Plus  -- An international conference dedicated to known Afghan poet and public figure Khalilulla Khalili opened in Dushanbe today.  

Jaffar Ranjbar, director of the Khalili Library at the Tajik Institute of Oriental Studies and Written Heritage, told Asia-Plus that the conference, staged by Tajikistan’s Institute of Oriental Studies and Written Heritage and Writers’ Union, has brought together researchers and poets from Tajikistan, Afghanistan, India and Iran.

An exhibition of works by Khalili was organized on sidelines of the conference     

Khalilulla Khalili (1908-1087) was Afghanistan’s foremost 20th Century poet  as well as a noted historian, university professor, diplomat and royal confidant.  He was the last of the great classical Persian poets and among the first to introduce modern Persian poetry and Nimai style in Afghanistan.  He had also expertise in Khorasani style and was a follower of Farrukh Sistani.  Almost alone among Afghanistan''s poets, he enjoyed a following in Iran where his selected poems have been published.  His works have been praised by renowned Iranian literary figures and intellectuals. Many see him as the greatest contemporary poet of the Persian language in Afghanistan.  He is also known for his major work "Hero of Khorasan", a controversial biography of Habibulla Kalkani, Emir of Afghanistan in 1929.  

Khalili was a prolific writer, producing over the course of his career an eclectic repertoire ranging from poetry to fiction to history to biography.  He published 35 volumes of poetry