Opinion: How 'The Godfather' Sparked Imagination In Afghanistan

It's hard to forecast the influence a work of art may have. Fifty years ago, Mario Puzo wrote a book in his basement after his first two novels had won splendid reviews but sold poorly.

In 1969, The Godfather was published.

One of the more than 30 million copies sold wound up in a pile of books on the street in Kabul, Afghanistan, in the mid-1990s. All Western literature, from Cervantes to Shakespeare to, well, Puzo, had been removed from the library during Afghanistan's civil war. Afghans would buy the books to burn the pages for heat, then tie the covers around their feet as makeshift shoes.

A young student named Zalmai Yawar saw a copy of The Godfather and placed it in a heap of books he hauled off in his arms for about 8 cents. Zalmai says that because it was a paperback, it wouldn't make good shoes, so he decided to try to read it.

He didn't read or write English. English education had been forbidden under Soviet domination, but Zalmai still had his father's old English-Pashtun dictionary and translated the novel, in secret, word by word.