Edward Zellem is the 12-time award-winning author of 3 bilingual books of Afghan Proverbs, now published in 20 languages.  He is a retired U.S. Navy officer and trained Dari speaker who served on active duty for 30 years.  He spent a year and a half embedded on native Afghan teams in Afghanistan.  This included a year on President Hamid Karzai's staff inside the Afghan Presidential Palace.

While in Afghanistan, Captain Zellem became fascinated with the way Afghans use Proverbs in their daily conversations. He began collecting and translating them, and used them every day with Afghans in his professional and personal life.

After students at a local Kabul high school offered to create illustrations, he decided to publish his collection as a personal project to share with the world.