Bachtyar Ali

Bachtyar Ali was born in 1966 in Sulaimaniya in northern Iraq. In 1983, he was injured during a student protest against Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party, an experience that changed his life course: he shifted his studies from geology to poetry. After the 1991 revoly, writers in the Kurdish region of Iraq experienced a surge of creative autonomy. Ali intensified his own artistic activity, and in the intervening years he has written over 40 books of fiction, poetry, and criticism, including 12 novels. He has been translated into more than six languages, a renown few authors writing in Kurdish enjoy today.

Bachtyar Ali’s Festival appearance is generously supported by the Goethe-Institut.

Bachtyar Ali is published by Steerforth Press

Photo credit: Khashraw Hama Karim