Kurdish Women's Stories
Edited by Houzan Mahmoud
Publication date:
20 January 2021Publisher
Pluto PressISBN-13: 9781786806482
'A fascinating, inspiring journey' - Meredith Tax, author of A Road Unforeseen
Kurdistan has had a tumultuous history, and the women who lived there have experienced a life like no other. From Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror beginning in the 1960s, to the fight against ISIS today, violence, revolution and questions around identity, agency, survival and resistance have been at the forefront of women’s lives for decades.
This book is a collection of these women’s stories written in their own words. Each story reveals a tapestry of experiences, including political activism under Saddam and armed resistance in Rojava’s PKK and YPG and Komala in Rojhalat. This is in addition to experiences of FGM and overcoming victimhood, life under extreme conservatism, as well as a look into the work of artists, poets, novelists and performers whose work represents a complicated relationship with Kurdistan.
These rich and nuanced insights come from a group of women from a nation without a state, who are now scattered across the world. Collectively, they take the reader on a journey that will inspire feminist, anti-fascist and anti-racist people across the world.
'For too long, Kurdish women have either been marginalized or portrayed as passive victims. In more recent years, we have also seen media representations exoticizing Kurdish women fighting against ISIS. This book, on the other hand, provides us with intimate accounts of everyday lives and resistances of different Kurdish women, showing us not only their hardships but their courage, resolve and complex humanity'