Kurdish PEN
Encyclopedia
Kurdish PEN or The Kurdish Centre of the International PEN (Navenda PEN a Kurd in Kurdish
) is a branch of International PEN
. It was suggested by Kurdish writer Hüseyin Erdem and voted into existence during International PEN's conference in Cambridge
in 1988. Its headquarters are located in Cologne
, Germany
.
The Kurdish PEN Center actively works with Kurdish writers in all parts of Kurdistan to promote the Kurdish language and literature
. The Center is headed by Dr. Zaradachet Hajo
.
Kurdish PEN publishes research articles related to Kurdish culture in four languages: English
, German
, Spanish
and Kurdish
. The Kurdish PEN is also active in Turkey
, where it organized a conference on cultural diversity in March 2005 in Diyarbakır
. It also encourages writers of International PEN to visit Kurdistan and meet Kurdish writers http://www.cordite.org.au/archives/001037.html.
Kurdish language
Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....
) is a branch of International PEN
International PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
. It was suggested by Kurdish writer Hüseyin Erdem and voted into existence during International PEN's conference in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
in 1988. Its headquarters are located in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
The Kurdish PEN Center actively works with Kurdish writers in all parts of Kurdistan to promote the Kurdish language and literature
Kurdish literature
Kurdish literature refers to literature written in Kurdish language. Literary Kurdish works have been written in one of the three main dialects of Gorani, Kurmanji and Sorani. Ali Hariri is one of the first well-known poets who wrote in Kurdish...
. The Center is headed by Dr. Zaradachet Hajo
Zaradachet Hajo
Zaradachet Hajo, is a Kurdish writer, linguist and researcher, born in Syria in 1950. He has studied linguistics, German and Iranian languages at the Free University of Berlin, and wrote his doctoral thesis on Indo-Iranian language studies. Since 1982, he has been teaching as the universities of...
.
Kurdish PEN publishes research articles related to Kurdish culture in four languages: English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Kurdish
Kurdish language
Kurdish is a dialect continuum spoken by the Kurds in western Asia. It is part of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European languages....
. The Kurdish PEN is also active in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, where it organized a conference on cultural diversity in March 2005 in Diyarbakır
Diyarbakır
Diyarbakır is one of the largest cities in southeastern Turkey...
. It also encourages writers of International PEN to visit Kurdistan and meet Kurdish writers http://www.cordite.org.au/archives/001037.html.
Founding Members
- Mehmed UzunMehmed UzunMehmed Uzun was a contemporary Kurdish writer and novelist. He was born in Siverek, Urfa, Turkey.Although the Kurdish language was outlawed in Turkey from 1920 to 1990, he started to write in his mother tongue. As a writer, he achieved a great deal towards shaping a modern Kurdish literary...
- Hüseyn Erdem
- Yayla Mönch-Bucak
- Abdurrahman Nakshabandy
- Hüseyin Kartal
- Emine Erdem
- Haydar Işik