Hamid Ismailov, the acclaimed author of The Railway, is an Uzbek poet and writer who was forced to flee Uzbekistan in 1992 and came to the UK, where he took a job with the BBC World Service. Writer in Residence of the BBC World Service whose works are banned in Uzbekistan, Ismailov has followed the history of Islamic radicalism in Central Asia and in Afghanistan starting from its very beginning in the late 80-ies, and as the BBC journalist travelled to Talibani Afghanistan to meet their elite. His observations and experiences have become part of the highly topical book A Poet and Bin-Laden.
