Parasto ( fa, پرستو, born Nooria) is an

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

singer. She has been a singer since the 1970s and rose to fame with her former husband

Rahim Mehryar Rahim Mehryar ( fa, رحيم مهریار) was a singer from Afghanistan. He and his wife singer Parasto, were counted as one of the most successful musical duos in the late 1980s that dominated the pop music scene in Afghanistan. Later he move ...

Biography

Parasto came from a very strict religious family from

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

. She started her career with the song "Saqi" in the early 1970s on

Radio Kabul Radio Afghanistan, also known as Radio Kabul or Voice of Sharia, is the public radio station of Afghanistan, owned by Radio Television Afghanistan. The frequencies are 1107 kHz (AM) and 105.2 MHz (FM) for the Kabul area. The name ''Radio Kabul'' ...

. Parasto graduated from Zarghona Girls' High School in Kabul. Her most popular songs are composed by Ustad Khyal such as "Juz Tu Zinda Am", "Zindagi Yak Rahe Door", "Yak Shabe Baraani", "Pa Ashoqi Ke"; also she has sung compositions by Waheed Qasimi &

Farhad Darya Farhad Darya (Pashto/Dari: ; born 22 September 1962) is an Afghan singer, composer and music producer who has written and composed songs in various languages. Darya sings in various languages including mostly his native language of Persian/Dar ...

. "Dil e Aadam" is one of Waheed Qasemi's compositions. Her songs "Shahr bay Darwaza" and Dilake Sawdayi were composed by Farhad Darya. In December 2009, Parasto was awarded the title of "Sitara-e- Hunar" at the ATN Awards in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, Germany. Also, in 2011 she won the ATN award for best female singer. Parasto's father is from Laghman, where she also lived briefly, while her mother is from Kabul. Parasto is bilingual in

Dari Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī � ...

and

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages ...

, and is fluent in

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

. On June 24, 2010, Parasto's husband,

, died after suffering from cancer. Parasto returned to Afghanistan in November 2010 to perform for Afghans in Afghanistan and she was applauded by a lot of fans there.

References

{{Reflist 20th-century Afghan women singers 21st-century Afghan women singers Living people 1954 births