From all four parts of Kurdistan and across the diaspora, Kurdish women from different geographical, political, and educational backgrounds pick up a pen, reflect, and remember. Going beyond exoticising stereotypes and patriarchal representations, Kurdish Women’s Stories gives 25 women authorial freedom to write about their own lived experiences. With contributors ranging from 20 to 70 years of age, we hear stories of imprisonment, exile, disappearances of loved ones, gender-based violence, uprisings, feminist activism, and armed resistance, including first-hand accounts of political moments from the 1960s to today. Conceived as part of Culture Project’s self-writing program, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to better understand the struggle of Kurdish women through their own words.
Contributors: Diba Alikhani, Kobra Banehi, Khanda Hameed, Nazanin Hasan, Nafia Aysi Hasso, Deejila Haydar, Zhala Hussein, Ruken Isik, Seveen Jimo, Lanja Khawe, Nahiya Khoshkalam, Hero Kurda, Khanda Rashid Murad, Rozhgar Mustafa, Dashne Nariman, Bayan Nasih, Avan Omar, Nasrin Ramazanali, Mother Sabria, Bayan Saeed, Bayan Salman, Farah Shareefi, Susan Shahab, Simal (Anonymous), Shahla Yarhussein
Acknowledgements
Introduction by Houzan Mahmoud
1. For the Execution of My Son, I Did Not Cry; There Was Smoke Coming from My Soul / Told by Mother Sabria and written by Amira Mohammed
2. The Last Cigarette Butt before Execution / Told by Nazanin Hasan and written by Amira Mohammed
3. A Stolen Childhood / Bayan Saeed
4. Run Away: A Vision from a Woman’s Perspective / Bayan Salman
5. There is a Sorrow in My Heart That I Cannot Console / Susan Shahab
6. The Prison Speakers Played Islamic Verses / Kobra Banehi
7. Breaking the Bars of Home and Becoming a Peshmerga / Farah Shareefi
8. Fighting an Islamic Regime / Nasrin Ramazanali
9. Fuchsia Flower of My Brother (Nasiri Khoshkalam)/ Nahiya Khoshkalam
10. The Explorer Who Watched from a School Window / Bayan Nasih
11. The Lost Photos of Engagement / Shahla Yarhussein
12. My Story / Diba Alikhani
13. At the Red Prison, They Want Workers / Rozhgar Mustafa
14. On Art, Womanhood, Being the ‘Other’ / Avan Omar
15. In Search of Kurdishness: Our History, My Life / Simal (Anonymous)
16. ‘To Be Ruken or Not to Be Buket?’ / Ruken Isik
17. Life is an Ongoing Struggle / Khanda Rashid Murad
18. A Woman of the Homeland of Rojava / Nafia Aysi Hasso
19. A Handful of Blood / Khanda Hameed
20. Except for Poetry, Nothing Else Shields Me / Hero Kurda
21. Once Upon a Time in Rojava / Deejila Haydar
22. A Day at Tel-Rafiat / Seveen Jimo
23. This is the Story of My Life / Lanja Khawe
24. I Struggle for Two Types of Liberation: Gender and Human Liberation / Dashne Nariman
25. What Motivated Me to Write? / Zhala Hussein
Index
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