Stories from a Future State
Edited by Orsola Casagrande & Mustafa Gündoğdu
Kurdistan +100 poses a question to thirteen contemporary Kurdish writers: might the Kurds have a country to call their own by the year 2046—exactly a century after the last glimmer of independence (the short-lived Kurdish Republic of Mahabad)? Or might the struggle for independence have taken new turns and new forms?
Publication Date: August 20, 2024
Paperback ISBN: 9781646052806
eBook ISBN: 9781646053018
Description
Throughout the 20th century (and so far in the 21st), the Kurds have been betrayed, suppressed, stripped of their basic rights (from citizenship to the freedom to speak their own language) and had their political aspirations crushed at every turn.
In this groundbreaking anthology, Kurdish authors (including several former political prisoners, and one currently serving a 183-year sentence for his views) imagine a freer future, one in which it is no longer effectively illegal to be a Kurd. From future eco-activism to drone warfare to the resuscitation of victims of past massacres, these stories explore different sides of the present struggle through the metaphor of futurism to dazzling effect.
Featuring Qadir Agid, Yıldız Çakar, Selahattin Demirtaş, Ömer Dilsoz, Muharrem Erbey, Nariman Evdike, Ava Homa, Hüseyin Karabey, Karzan Kardozi, Sema Kaygusuz, Jahangir Mahmoudveysi, Meral Şimşek, and Jîl Şwanî.
Translated by Amy Spangler, Nicholas Glastonbury, Andrew Penny, Mustafa Gundogdu, Rojin Hamo, Khazan Jangiz, Harriet Paintin, Darya Najim, Dibar Çelik & Kate Ferguson.
Biographical Note
Orsola Casagrande is a Havana-based journalist and filmmaker. As a journalist, she worked for twenty-five years for the Italian daily newspaper il manifesto, and is currently coeditor of the web magazine Global Rights. She writes in Italian, English, Spanish, and Turkish, and speaks Kurdish and French, as well as having basic conversational skills in Farsi and the Basque language. Based between Barcelona and Havana, Orsola writes regularly on Spanish, Catalan, and Basque politics, as well as the Colombian peace process. She has collaborated with international peace mediator Brian Currin on peace negotiations in the Basque country, Kurdistan, and Colombia. She has translated numerous books, as well as written her own.
Born in the city of Dersim, and currently based in London, Mustafa Gündoğdu has worked as a coordinator for various human rights and conflict resolution NGOs over 20 years, where his roles included in-house translator (working on over 100 books and articles). He has since worked as a freelance editor and second reader on a number of Kurdish translations, including Sara: My Whole life was a Struggle by Sakine Cansiz translated by Janet Biehl (Pluto) and Uprising, Suppression, Retribution by Ahmet Kahraman translated by Andrew Penny (Taderon). He is the founder and former Coordinator of London Kurdish Film Festival, and has organized Kurdish film festivals and screenings in London, New York, Dublin, Glasgow, Istanbul, and Busan. He is the author of numerous articles on Kurdish cinema published in Kurdish, Turkish, English and Korean.