Nazand Begikhani
Nazand Begikhani
Nazand Begikhani (MA & PhD in comparative literature, Sorbonne University), is a British poet and academic of Kurdish origin. She is the author many books and articles, including ten poetry collections, mainly in Kurdish, but also in English and French. Her poetry is translated into many European and Asian languages.
Nazand is also an award-winning poet and human rights activist with several international prizes including Britain’s Emma Humphrey Memorial Prize for her work against honor-based crimes (2000), France’s Simone Landrey Feminine Poetry Prize for her collection Le Lendemain d’Hier (published by l’Amandier, 2012) and the Kurdistan Gender Equality Prize (2015).
The translator Richard McKane has emphasised the complex cultural and political influences on this poet’s work: “Exiled writing is always double-edged, involving not so much nostalgia as sharp longing; not so much sentimentality as twin or, in Nazand’s case, quadruple mentalities…” She herself has focussed on the healing, cathartic aspects of creativity: “You can only overcome your pain and anger through artistic creation, through poetry.” Nazand explores the experience of being an exiled Kurdish woman in visionary poems of political and spiritual depth. Their lines are indeed ‘bell-like’ clear, musical, penetrating. Fully cognisant of that “thin line between life and death”, they are poignant, but ultimately life-enhancing.
Bibliography:
Yesterday of Tomorrow, Association of Kurdish Artists in France, Paris, 1995
Celebrations, Arras, Kurdistan, 2004
Colour of Sand, Arras, Kurdistan, 2005
Bells of Speech, Ambit Books, London, 2006
Links:
Nazand Begikhani at Exiled Writers
Three poems published in Modern Poetry in Translation:
Time
Dreams
Words of Love
An interview with KurdishMedia.com
On violence against women in Kurdistan and Kurdish communities abroad
Sponsors
