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).

Reviews

Oliver Stone expressed these thoughts to the authors about their work, "Going back to Afghanistan right now is a long, long journey. Although I've never been there in person, I feel like I've been there through your minds."

"Readers with a serious interest in U.S. foreign policy or military strategy will find it helpful... Bob Woodward's recent Obama's War focuses on the administration's AfPak deliberations, but this book provides a wider perspective" Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., NY Library Journal

"Journalists Fitzgerald and Gould do yeoman's labor in clearing the fog and laying bare American failures in Afghanistan in this deeply researched, cogently argued and enormously important book. " Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A probing history of the country and a critical evaluation of American involvement in recent decades . . . A fresh perspective on a little-understood nation." Kirkus

" The Voice takes its audience on a quest for the real Holy Grail, entwining scientific mythology with geopolitical intrigue in an esoteric thrill-ride Dan Brown couldn't dream up..." Michael Hughes, Huffpost Books

"Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould have seen the importance of the 'Great Game' in Afghanistan since the early 1980s. They have been most courageous in their commitment to telling the truthand have paid a steep price for it." Oliver Stone

"Fitzgerald and Gould have consistently raised the difficult questions and inconvenient truths about western engagement in Afghanistan. While many analysts and observers have attempted to wish a reality on a grim and tragic situation in Afghanistan, Fitzgerald and Gould have systematically dug through the archives and historical record with integrity and foresight to reveal a series of misguided strategies and approaches that have contributed to what has become a tragic quagmire in Afghanistan." Professor Thomas Johnson, Department of National Security Affairs and Director, Program for Culture and Conflict Studies, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey California

"A ferocious, iron-clad argument about the institutional failure of American foreign policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan." Daniel Ellsberg