With the coming of the Soviets in 1979, many writers were forced to leave as their writings were not supportive of the regime and its modern ideas. In contrast, many Afghans who would never have considered themselves poets began to write poems as a form of resistance to the Soviet occupation and in support of Islam and freedom. Writers in refugee camps along the borders promoted their own groups of revolutionaries or tried to continue the craft in difficult conditions. They included Khalili, Abdul Ghafur Arezo (the director of the Cultural Association in Iran), Kazim E Kazimi, Fazl Allah Godsi and Sami Hamed. Inside Afghanistan at this time, writers included Wasef Bakhtari, Ghahhar Asi, Parto Naderi, Haidery Woojudi and Rahnavard Zaryab.

The overseas Afghans of this period also wrote, not on the age-old topics of love and daily life, but about the sadness of exile. In 1990 Spojmai Zariab (b 1949) left Kabul for France where she now writes short stories. In a recent interview she said ‘You simply need to read contemporary Afghan poetry … [it] sings constantly with grief.’ The few memoirs written abroad from this time are about migrancy and loss. Zohra Sayed, an Afghan American poet and co-editor of an anthology of Afghan writing, found it difficult to find authors in the refugee camps. Their concerns were for survival, not creativity.