Novel
ژانی گەل (Janî Gel)
Not translated into English
Ibrahim Ahmad · 1956
Synopsis
Kalée, Jwamer's wife, is about to give birth, and he runs to fetch the midwife. On the way, he finds himself caught in a Kurdish demonstration that the police disperse; because he happened to end up at its head, he is arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. Released, he sets out in search of his wife and of the child he did not see born, across a torn Kurdistan.
Context
Written in 1956, the novel appeared in volume form only in 1972 or in 1973. It was translated into Persian and published in Iran in 1980, then translated into Turkish and French in 1994: the French version, by Ismael Darwish, appeared in Paris from L'Harmattan, in the Lettres kurdes series, under the title Mal du peuple. The French publisher presents in it a torn Kurdistan and links its author to the realist current of Kurdish literature.
Who it is for
In Sorani Kurdish; a French translation has existed since 1994, of about two hundred pages.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's major novel, and counted by Philip Kreyenbroek as the first novel in Sorani Kurdish.
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