My interest in Afghanistan dates to when, at the age of nine, I discovered Kipling's Kim and The Man Who Would Be King. I first went to Afghanistan in 1975, not, as did so many dealers in Afghan carpets, on the old hippie trail, or as a member of the Peace Corp., but as a carpet buyer.
[A version of this article was first published in November, 1997 in Volume 19, No. 2 of Rug News Magazine.]