Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora

Sleeping in the Courtyard brings together historically isolated writers in community—and invites readers to join them around the table to share in their memories, secrets, tears, and joys. Featuring poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and graphic work by emerging and well-established writers, this collection shines a light on works by a diverse group of contemporary Kurdish women and nonbinary writers living in Kurdistan and in diaspora.

Recognizing the complex web of physical and lingual displacement of the Kurdish people and celebrating the diverse tapestry of their stories, this collection presents work originally written in English and work translated from Kurdish dialects as well as from Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Swedish. A few works in Kurdish dialects appear alongside their translations, both in recognition of the experience of linguicide and to push against oppressive attempts to strip away Kurdish language.

Several works here explore the impact of the countless forms of militarized displacement, cultural destruction, and mass genocide that Kurds have endured. Other pieces illuminate Kurdish experiences of desire, friendship, empowerment, familial intricacies, and other topics spanning across universal human conditions. The writers in these pages take risks both in craft and content—and in some cases, just by daring to write and publish. What emerges in Sleeping in the Courtyard is the antithesis of erasure.