The Valediction

About the Author

Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, a husband and wife team, began working together in 1979 co-producing a documentary titled, The Arms Race and the Economy, A Delicate Balance. In 1981 they acquired the first visas to enter Afghanistan granted to an American TV crew. Following their news story for the CBS, they produced a documentary (Afghanistan Between Three Worlds) for PBS and in 1983 they returned to Kabul for ABC Nightline with Harvard Negotiation Project director, Roger Fisher. Starting in 1992 through 1995 they worked on the film version of their experience under contract to Oliver Stone. In 1998 they started collaborating with Afghan human rights expert Sima Wali. Along with Wali, they contributed to the Women for Afghan Women: Shattering Myths and Claiming the Future project published by Palgrave Macmillan (2002). In 2002 they filmed Wali's first return to Kabul since her exile in 1978 and produced a film about that journey titled The Woman in Exile Returns. Their book, Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story, published by City Lights (2009), lays bare why it was inevitable that the Soviet Union and the U.S. should end up in Afghanistan. Crossing Zero The AfPak War at the Turning Point of American Empire, published by City Lights (2011), lays out the contradictions of America's AfPak strategy. Their novel The Voice, published in 2001, is the esoteric side of their Afghan experience. They continued to research and publish articles. In 2021 they completed the weaving together of their factual and mystical story in The Valediction: Three Nights of Desmond Book 1 published by Trine Books (2021).