Writing in a “Minority” Language
Kurdish and Palestinian Writers on Literature and Resistance
16 January, 2020, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Chair:
Dr. Duygu Atlas - The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Participants:
Firat Cewerî - Kurdish novelist, translator and journalist.
Fida Jiryis - Palestinian novelist
The rise of nation-states and concurrent projects for establishing unitary national identities have affected many languages by reducing them to minority status. As strong symbols of ethnic identity, languages of minorities have become the most obvious targets of nation-states. In this event Kurdish writer Firat Cewerî will speak about the difficult journey of Kurdish literature in Turkey under draconian state policies geared toward the suppression of the Kurdish language, and his personal experience as a Kurdish writer. Palestinian writer Fida Jiryis will provide a comparative look at the Turkish and Israeli cases by detailing her journey as a Palestinian writer producing in Arabic.
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