Nali’s poetic oeuvre, or diwan, is one of the most significant works of Kurdish literature but has not previously been translated into English. In terms of matter and manner, his adaptations of the Classical Perso-Arabic ghazal emphasize sustained correspondence of sounds, usually as end-rhymes, in lines of consistent, equal length; each ghazal addresses a lover of unspecified, indeterminate gender, and closes with a parting signature by Nali’s poetic persona, signaling the poem’s end and reflecting upon the nature of the poem and its addressee. More than mere couplets, his paired lines constitute discrete poetic expressions in their own right, yet remain interdependent in relation to the ghazal as a whole. Every couplet sets up images in tension, emotions straining toward an articulation that seems always to elude reductive treatment. Our translations approximate the Kurdish rhymes with English assonance and half-rhymes, which, in English-language poetry, achieve a less heavy-handed, more palatable effect. We also endeavored to balance the feminine and masculine traits of the addressee, never explicitly indicating whether the Beloved is male or female, to preserve Nali’s deliberate ambiguity on this point. In keeping with this indeterminacy, the ghazal invites supple interpretations, capable of adapting the poem’s sequence of surprising imagery to apply to a human lover, a deity, a homeland.
- Haidar Khezri and Tyler Fisher
Germany | Kurdish | Northern Kurdistan | Poetry
January, 2020On October 13, just four days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tweeted his announcement of his pending invasion of Rojava, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, under the vilely euphemistic name Operation Peace Spring, I received an invitation to edit a new Google document from my friend and colleague Jiyar Homer, with whom I have been co-translating the short stories of the Kurdish polymath Farhad Pirbal. The note that accompanied the invitation was to the point: “Urgent translation.” Over the following days, we workshopped our translation of “The Tale of Hungry Dogs,” a short poem by the Ferîd Xan, a Kurd born in present-day Turkey. The poem, first published in 2006, seems as fresh as if it had been written that week. Indeed, the oppression and statelessness faced by the Kurdish people is not a new phenomenon—this is merely the latest chapter in a history of centuries of persecution and survival, as Xan suggests, “like a dog.” It’s our hope that this translation from the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish, spoken in both Rojava and Southern Turkey, contributes toward a collective remembrance of what continues to unfold in Rojava, now that the relentless news ticker has moved on. With over 150 civilians killed and over 300,000 displaced, the plight of the Kurds and Rojava’s other residents remains an urgent humanitarian crisis, and US betrayal of the predominately Kurdish peshmerga who served on the front lines of the battle against the Islamic State feels like just the latest kick to a gaunt but proud dog’s ribs.
- David Shook
The Brooklyn Rail welcomes you to our web-exclusive section InTranslation, where we feature unpublished translations of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. Published since April 2007, InTranslation is a venue for outstanding work in translation and a resource for translators, authors, editors, and publishers seeking to collaborate.
We seek exceptional unpublished English translations from all languages.
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