Sherko Bekas and the Emergence of Postnational Kurdish Literature
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Marouf Cabi
Abstract
This chapter analyses the poet Sherko Bekas’s Now A Girl Is My Homeland, representing a post-national trend in contemporary Kurdish literature. “Postnational literature” denotes a shift from being mainly concerned with promoting the national consciousness of the Kurds and elevating their status to nationhood- into an increasingly critical field concerned with promoting social consciousness. Bekas’s critical engagement with the Kurdish state-building process in the last few decades resulted in several breathtaking literary works which signified a literary break with the past. While many themes represent this literary transformation, religion and gender constitute two vital aspects of that transformation, intimately connected to a rapidly changing world. This chapter presents a historical overview of the course of modern Kurdish literature, outlining the distinguishing characteristics of the two literary transformations at the turn of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. This is followed by an analysis of religion and gender in Bekas’s recent work so to show the postnational transformation in Kurdish literature.
Abstract
This chapter analyses the poet Sherko Bekas’s Now A Girl Is My Homeland, representing a post-national trend in contemporary Kurdish literature. “Postnational literature” denotes a shift from being mainly concerned with promoting the national consciousness of the Kurds and elevating their status to nationhood- into an increasingly critical field concerned with promoting social consciousness. Bekas’s critical engagement with the Kurdish state-building process in the last few decades resulted in several breathtaking literary works which signified a literary break with the past. While many themes represent this literary transformation, religion and gender constitute two vital aspects of that transformation, intimately connected to a rapidly changing world. This chapter presents a historical overview of the course of modern Kurdish literature, outlining the distinguishing characteristics of the two literary transformations at the turn of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. This is followed by an analysis of religion and gender in Bekas’s recent work so to show the postnational transformation in Kurdish literature.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- Shared Ownership and Kurdish Folklore 5
- Resist Diyarbakır, Resist: Exploring Kurdish Literary Intelligentsia in Diyarbakır 19
- Tales of Woe, Ruthless Foes, and Patriotic Heroes: A Historical-Literary Study of Kurdish (Dis)unity in the Early Modern Era 39
- Sherko Bekas and the Emergence of Postnational Kurdish Literature 97
- Re-evaluation of the Yārsān Texts and its Impact on Kurdish Literature 129
- Kurdish Music as Literature: Some Historical Considerations 147
- Kurdish Women’s Feminist Poetry: Developing a Voice in Southern Kurdistan and the Diaspora 171
- Kurdish Women in Fiction and a History of Violence, Displacement, and Migration 193
- General Index 215
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- Shared Ownership and Kurdish Folklore 5
- Resist Diyarbakır, Resist: Exploring Kurdish Literary Intelligentsia in Diyarbakır 19
- Tales of Woe, Ruthless Foes, and Patriotic Heroes: A Historical-Literary Study of Kurdish (Dis)unity in the Early Modern Era 39
- Sherko Bekas and the Emergence of Postnational Kurdish Literature 97
- Re-evaluation of the Yārsān Texts and its Impact on Kurdish Literature 129
- Kurdish Music as Literature: Some Historical Considerations 147
- Kurdish Women’s Feminist Poetry: Developing a Voice in Southern Kurdistan and the Diaspora 171
- Kurdish Women in Fiction and a History of Violence, Displacement, and Migration 193
- General Index 215
