Edward Zellem

Edward Zellem is a retired U.S. Navy captain and the 12-time award-winning author of 5 books. He is known for his work inside Afghanistan's Presidential Palace and for authoring three bilingual collections of Afghan Proverbs: Zarbul Masalha: 151 Afghan Dari Proverbs, a book for children entitled Afghan Proverbs Illustrated, and a companion book of Pashto proverbs entitled Mataluna: 151 Afghan Pashto Proverbs. Zellem wrote the books to "show how Afghan proverbs demonstrate our common humanity and the humanity of Afghans, and to share the proverbs' lyricism, richness and deep meanings with the rest of the world". He is a member of the International Association of Paremiology (AIP-IAP), which is based in Tavira, Portugal. It is a nonprofit cultural institution dedicated to the international scientific study of proverbs, and is the only association of its type in the world. He also is an active professional scuba diving instructor with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), and holds the PADI rating of Master Instructor.

Biography Captain Edward Zellem served as a United States Navy officer for 30 years, has lived in six countries and has visited at least 50 others. He was a University of Virginia football player, spent time in New Zealand and Thailand, and then joined the Navy to continue to see the world.

Career Before he joined the Navy, he worked in New Zealand and taught English in a small village in southern Thailand. The room is known as the Presidential Information Coordination Center (PICC), which Zellem co-founded and co-directed with Afghan Army Brigadier General Sakhi Ahmadzai. It was a key component of the Afghan government's National Security Council Staff under National Security Adviser Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta. The PICC was a 24/7 center that directly served the national-level critical information needs of both the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai and then-Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands Program was conceived in 2009 by then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, as a top-priority program he argued would "change the paradigm" of how the United States employed its forces in Afghanistan. He envisioned an organization of "experts who speak the local language, are culturally attuned, and are focused on the problem for an extended period of time". They work to fight corruption, as a liaison between Afghan organizations and coalition and international groups that can assist them, and may include military advising to organizing sporting events. The first group of "Hands" is composed of more than 500 civilians, officers and enlisted service members from all four services, and Afghan Hands personnel fill 229 in-country billets. Each "Hand" moves through phases of training, deployment and redeployment during a 36- to 45-month tour with the program. though 70 percent of the population can't read. and when word of his proverbs list spread, he created about 100 copies but that planned addition was scrapped after he became Director of the Central Intelligence Agency because the United States Department of State was leery about associating the book with America's spy agency. After his retirement from the military, Petraeus offered his foreword as a cover blurb for the second edition. Zellem also inscribed a copy to give to Gen. John R. Allen, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the International Security Assistance Force, who then gave it to President Karzai. In 2011, 40,000 copies were published and Marefat High School distributed them to other schools and organizations in Afghanistan. In 2015, he published a 3rd edition that contains an additional 50 proverbs obtained by crowdsourcing. Zellem gave a copyright license to Marefat High School to republish and sell the book for profit in Afghanistan.

Like all books in Dari, the Kabul edition of "Zarbul Masalha" opens from right-to-left. The book was given an award by the Military Writers Society of America in 2013. Edward Zellem's second book, "Afghan Proverbs Illustrated", was published in October 2012 and is designed for children and new readers After readers in many countries asked for bilingual translations in their own languages, the original English-Dari edition of "Afghan Proverbs Illustrated" was published in German-Dari, French-Dari and Russian-Dari editions. Additional translations have also been done, with more in development.

Zellem has said that a number of Afghan American readers told him that his books helped them and their families to practice their Dari and reconnect with their homeland's culture. Others have used the book for Dari/Farsi language studies, to understand Afghans better and general inspiration. One reviewer said that "Zarbul Masalha" is "both a window and a mirror. As a window, it helps readers gain deep insights into Afghan culture and language. And as a mirror, readers can see themselves and their own cultures reflected in the universal messages expressed by Afghan proverbs".

Zellem pioneered the method of collecting proverbs by crowdsourcing, via the Web. This method of collecting proverbs has been shown to be not only efficient at collecting a large number of proverbs, but also at gathering data to assess which proverbs are the most common. In addition, this has been important for involving the community in valuing, discussing, and gathering their proverbs.

Recognitions In recognition of his books of Afghan proverbs, Zellem was honored by the Afghan diaspora community at the Rumi Awards in October 2013.

Zarbul Masalha earned Zellem an award by the Military Writers Society of America in 2013. As of mid-2017, Zarbul Masalha, Afghan Proverbs Illustrated, and Mataluna have won a total of 12 international book awards.