Tag Archives: Kurdish

Day of the Imprisoned Writer – İlhan Sami Çomak

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Venue: The Printworks, Dublin Castle

When: Friday 08th November, 6:30 pm

This year, to mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann and Dublin Book Festival are proud to dedicate the event to our first Honorary Member, Kurdish poet İlhan Sami Çomak, one of Turkey’s longest-serving political prisoners. Joining us will be: Paula Meehan, poet; Caroline Stockford, PEN Norway, İlhan’s friend and translator; Ipek Ozel, İlhan’s McKenzie Friend; Iggy McGovern, poet and Board member of Irish PEN, and Burhan Sönmez, President of PEN International. With artwork by Gianluca Costantini @channeldraw on display. 

Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.

The event is FREE but booking is essential. Please click here.

Paula Meehan was born and raised in Dublin’s north inner city. Her award-winning poetry has garnered widespread popular and critical acclaim. She has been translated into many languages; recently
Japanese & Dutch with collections forthcoming in Spanish, Polish, Greek. Her poetry has been scored for choirs, for solo voice, has been made into songs by artists from divers traditions — the folk, including the legendary Christy Moore, and the avant garde; has been made into wee films; has been danced; has been
inflicted on the youth of the country in school & university. Has been 8/1 to come up on the Leaving Cert. She was Ireland Professor of Poetry, 2013–2016 and Imaginary Bonnets with Real Bees in Them, her public lectures from the Chair, are published by UCD Press. Recent publications are As If By Magic: Selected Poems, (2020) and The Solace of Artemis (2023) which received the Pigott Prize for Poetry,  2024. They are published by Dedalus Press, Dublin.

© Paula T Nolan

Caroline Stockford is a poet and translator of Turkish literature. She works as Turkey Adviser for PEN Norway and has led the campaign for Ilhan since 2019. She and other translators produced his selected works in English, Separated from the Sun, in 2021 (available from Smokestack
books) and an anthology of world poets writing for Ilhan is on the way.

Ipek Ozel is an academic at the faculty of law, with a focus on human rights, law and prison studies. Lecturing for the last 27 years. Advocating for students in prisons for the last 15 years.  Ipek has served as a McKenzie Friend to 8 students who were long term prisoners and has followed up on many trials of students charged with political crimes. She has been one of Ilhan Sami’s staunchest supporters and friends.

Iggy McGovern was born in 1948 in Coleraine; since 1979 he has resided in Dublin, where he lectured in Physics at Trinity College, retiring in 2013. He has published three collections of poetry with Dedalus Press: The King of Suburbia (2005), Safe House (2010) and The Eyes of Isaac Newton (2017). Other publications include A Mystic Dream of 4 (2013) and Making Waves (2019), both with Quaternia Press.
Awards include The Hennessy Award for Poetry and The Glen Dimplex New Writers Award for Poetry.

Burhan Sönmez is the author of six novels. He is president of PEN International and a Senior Member of Hughes Hall College and Trinity College, University of Cambridge. His novels have been translated into forty-eight languages and received international prizes, including the EBRD Literature Prize and Vaclav Havel Library Award. He was born in Turkey and grew up speaking Turkish and Kurdish. He worked as a lawyer in Istanbul before going to Britain for political reasons and living there in exile for several years. He has been on the judging panel of several events, including Inge Feltrinelli Prize and
Geneva International Film Festival and written for press such as La Repubblica, Der Spiegel and The Guardian. He has translated the poetry book of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake into Turkish. Having written five novels in Turkish, he began to write in his mother tongue, Kurdish, with his last novel Lovers of Franz K. He lives between Cambridge and Istanbul.

©Roberto Gandola

Raids on Kurdish language associations and bookstore condemned

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25 September 2024 –

Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann expresses serious concerns along with PEN International and Norsk PEN, following police raids on two Kurdish associations and a bookstore in Diyarbakır, southeastern Türkiye, resulting in several individuals being detained and hundreds of books seized on alleged terror-related grounds. PEN International urges the authorities of Türkiye to respect the right of Kurdish people to use and promote their own language and culture. 

Please read PEN International and Norsk PEN full statement here and here.

“The raids, which included the detention of several MED-DER members and the seizure of educational materials in Kurdish dialects, signify a troubling trend of systematic repression against institutions dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Kurdish language and culture” (Norsk PEN).

‘Kurdish people have the right to use their own language in public and in education and to receive information in their mother tongue. Our linguistic riches should be celebrated, not destroyed.’ Burhan Sonmez, PEN International President.

From Norsk PEN page: “Ömer Fidan, Co-President of Kurdish PEN Center, asked for support from the PEN network regarding the attacks. Fidan said:

– As far as I could learn, 25 people were detained in Amed/Diyabakır. These are all close friends of mine who I personally work with, see almost every day, and work on the Kurdish language. I have worked for years in all of the civil society organizations mentioned and continue to do so.  As the Kurdish PEN Center, we hope that you, our valuable rights defenders, will not withhold your support. We wish that you, our valuable friends, will also support us and join us as the PEN international family and add your voice to ours.”

New poetry by Nedim Türfent

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The latest issue of Kalliope X Magazine features four poems from former imprisoned writer and honorary PEN member Nedim Türfent, written when he was still unfairly detained. The poems are translated by Hidayet Ceylan & Matt Hetherington. Please read and share widely:

Poet – Nedim Türfent

Nedim Türfent is a poet, journalist and editor at https://bianet.org. His first poetry book Bird Mirror was published in Turkey in 2021. In 2022, his book of poems and writings Über Mauern was published in Germany. He is an honorary member of PEN Melbourne.

Letter to Irish PEN members from Ilhan Sami Çomak, translated by Paula Darwish.

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The prize-winning Kurdish poet Ilhan Sami Çomak has been in prison in Turkey for 28 years, since he was 22 years old. During his confinement, Çomak has written eight award-winning collections of poetry. His first collection in English, Separated from the Sun, edited and with an Introduction by Welsh poet and translator Caroline Stockford, was published in September by Smokestack Books.
During his confinement, Çomak has become a highly-respected poet, with a growing international reputation.

Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann is honoured Ilhan Sami Çomak has accepted to be our first Honorary Member. Please find below Ilhan Sami Çomak’s powerful letter to Irish PEN members.

July 2022,

Dear Friends,

I think the reason why people make so many mistakes in life is that they have no access to the possibilities of words, to the opportunity to speak and write. In fact, speaking is a youthful behaviour, while silence is ancient. But it is this youthfulness, above all else, that has the capacity to change the world or us as people.

However you look at it, words and writing are the resistance point as we reach into the infinitely distant expanse that we call the future. When those of us who reject the tyranny of the present seek to invoke the new and beautiful, words are the most viable and humane invention we have at our disposable. I’m sure you already know this story, but I feel the need to share it with you again as it has had a great effect on me: According to belief, Saint Patrick prayed with such fervour and sincerity in the yard of the church on Church Island that the imprint of his knees was left in the ground stones. I think this is a very accurate representation of the proven power of words – be it prayers, poetry or novels – to bring about change and the place this has in our lives. That’s why I sincerely believe that words and writing are a critical factor in our tenacious grip on life.

As far as I can see, this is the reason why every poet and writer writes – more than anything, it is to change their life and themselves in line with their beliefs.

I write poetry for the sake of life and to stay alive, for my deep connection with life, because I miss life, because it brings life to my cell, because I love life and people with a passion and because I believe in life and myself. The continuity of this belief is all I have.

Discovering and understanding life through poetry, together with the persistence of my efforts, eventually altered me and my expectations from life. In fact, life has changed with me. Over these 28 years of unrelenting confinement, I missed life so much, I spoke of so many longings that in the end the longings took on a life of their own; with poetry, above all with poetry, I woke up to life.

Poetry took me by the hand; as I negotiated the unending contradiction of living between the heavy, poisonous pain of my experiences and the beauty and lightness of the things I wanted to experience, it gave me the acute insight I needed to keep my balance. It protected me from reality by supporting my dreams in the circumstances of this place, where time and space are defiled by constant repetition and high walls. The fact that I am still alive and well, despite all these years of unjust confinement, is undoubtedly due to my unrelenting efforts to reach the life envisioned by poetry, and through the act of writing about them, to reach all the things I miss. I may not have the fervent power of St Patrick, but I do have avid, tireless desires that know where and what they should gravitate towards. I want to live; that is why I cling to words and writing, the greatest invention of humankind.

Dear friends, despite this immense ordeal, my voice and my words crossed the seas to reach you. You called out to me with your friendship, taking my hand and my poetry. I see that as proof of poetry’s mighty heart, which can overcome any adversity. And I also see this call as a beacon, signalling that somewhere in every time and space there are warm-hearted people who know what is good, who create goodness and recognise the capacity of words and imagination to change the world.

It is an honour to be accepted as a member of Irish PEN. The step you have taken has given me great strength. Now I am closer to the outside, nearer to clean, fresh air. It’s beautiful to feel the warmth of your hand of friendship! I thank you with all my heart.