Jan Dost, (; Kurdish: Jan Dost; born 12 March 1965 in

Kobanî Kobani, also Kobane, officially Ayn al-Arab, is a Kurdish-majority city in the Ayn al-Arab District in northern Syria, lying immediately south of the Syria–Turkey border. As a consequence of the Syrian civil war, the city came under the co ...

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

), is a

Syrian Kurdish The Kurdish population of Syria is the country's largest ethnic minority, usually estimated at around 10% of the Syrian population Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria, constituting around 10 per cent of the population – around 2 m ...

poet, writer and translator. He has written several novels both in his native

Kurmanji Kurmanji (, ), also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northernmost of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern Syria and the Caucasus and Khorasan regions. It is the ...

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

language and in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

. He is known as a prolific Kurdish writer, with several of his novels in the context of the Syrian civil war. Apart from his own works, Dost has translated Kurdish and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

works into Arabic, including Mem and Zin, a classical Kurdish love story, written by

Ahmad Khani Ahmad () is an Arabic male given name common in most parts of the Muslim world. Other English spellings of the name include Ahmed. It is also used as a surname. Etymology The word derives from the root ( ḥ-m-d), from the Arabic (), from ...

in the 17th century and considered as the

national epic A national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks to or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation—not necessarily a nation state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group wi ...

of the Kurdish people. His literary contributions span various genres, including poetry, novels, and translations. Some of his works have been translated into Italian, Turkish, Persian and Spanish. Since 2000, Dost has lived in exile in Germany, acquiring German citizenship in 2008.

Life and career

Dost was born in 1965 in Kobanî (Ain al-Arab in Arabic), a mostly Kurdish city in northern Syria. From 1985 to 1988 he studied natural sciences in

Aleppo Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...

, but abandoned his academic education after three years, focusing on literature and writing. He wrote his early epic poem ''Kela Dimdimê (The Citadel of Dimdim)'' in 1984, which was only published in Kurdish in Germany in 1991. Among other translations, Dost translated his own Kurdish novel ''Mîrname,'' set during the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in the 17th century, into Arabic. The work is a fictitious biography of Ahmad Khani (1650-1707), a major Kurdish poet and

Sufi Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...

, who fought "injustice using only a pen and ink." In February 2024, his novel ''Safe Corridor,'' translated by

Marilyn Booth Marilyn Louise Booth (born 24 February 1955) is an author, scholar and translator of Arabic literature. Since 2015, she has been the Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at the University of Oxford a ...

, was awarded the first-ever Bait Al-Ghasham Dar Arab Translation Prize, an international award for the translation of

Arabic literature Arabic literature ( / ALA-LC: ''al-Adab al-‘Arabī'') is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is ''Adab (Islam), Adab'', which comes from a meaning of etiquett ...

into English. This story takes place during the 2018 Turkish occupation of Afrin. In another novel, ''A Green Bus Leaves Aleppo,'' Dost used the same plot, but told from a different character’s perspective. In a 2022 interview with literary critic Nuha Askar about the relationship of his literary work and Kurdish

national identity National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...

, Dost said:Askar, Nuha. (2022). The Out-of-Flock Dissident: An Interview with Kurdish – Syrian Writer Jan Dost. ''Review of Middle East Studies''. 56(2):403-409. Further, he considered that "the Syrian novel has become essentially a

war novel A war novel or military fiction is a novel about war. It is a novel in which the primary action takes place on a battlefield, or in a civilian setting (or home front), where the characters are preoccupied with the preparations for, suffering th ...

," with several of his own works dealing with the fighting and destruction in the Kurdish regions of Afrin, Kobani and

Amuda Amuda (, ) is a town in Al Hasakah Governorate in northeastern Syria close to the Syria–Turkey border. As a result of the ongoing civil war, Amuda is currently under the civil control of the AANES and military control of the SDF. History ...

. Asked about his relationship with the Arabic language, he explained that he started writing in this language at a young age and considers it his own language, just as other writers of

. Having grown up with Kurdish as his native language and Arabic through his cultural environment, he considers himself

bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

, speaking and thinking equally well in both languages. His own translations of earlier novels written in Arabic into Kurdish are based on his decision to publish all of his literary work in his "marginalized national language".

Works

Novels

* ''Mijabad''. Kurdish. Diyarbakir 2004 * ''Sê gav û sê darek''. Kurdish. Avesta, Istanbul 2007 * ''Mîrname''. Kurdish. Avesta, Istanbul 2008 * ''Martînê Bextewer''. Kurdish. Avesta, Istanbul 2011 * ''Asheeq the Translator'' (عشيق المترجم) Arabic. Waraq Publishing, Dubai 2013 * ''Blood on the Minaret'' (دم على المئذنة) Arabic. Maqam, Kairo 2013 * ''The Bells of Rome'' (نواقيس روما) Arabic. Dar Al-Saqi, Beirut 2017 * ''Kobani: The Tragedy and the Quarter.'' Kurdish. Dara, Diyarbakir 2017 * ''Safe Corridor'' (ممر آمن) Arabic. Miskiliani, Tunis 2019, English translation 2024 * ''A Green Bus leaving Aleppo'' (باص أخضر يغادر حلب). Arabic. Al Mutawaset, Milano 2019 * ''The manuscript of Petersburg''. (مخطوط بطرسبورغ) Arabic. Miskiliani, Tunis 2020 * ''Cordyceps''. (الكوردي سيبس) Arabic. Damascus. 2020 * ''In the Grip of a Nightmare – Diary of the Corona Siege: Narratives about the Virus.'' (في قبضة الكابوس. يوميات حصار كورونا : مرويات الفيروس) Arabic. Amman 2021

Translations

* ''Mem and Zin'' (from Kurdish into Arabic). Damascus 1995. Duhok 2016. Kairo 2016

Poetry

* ''Dîwana Jan''. Avesta, Istanbul 2008 * ''Kela Dimdimê''. (''The Citadel of Dimdim)'' Bonn 1991; Istanbul 2008 * ''Sazek ji çavên Kurdistan re (A Song for Kurdistan's Eyes).'' Kurdish. Syria 1996 * ''Poems which the War has Forgotten in the Poet's Pocket''. Arabic. Amman. 2019

Awards

* first prize in a Kurdish short story competition in Syria (1993) * the Kurdish Galawej Award, a poetry award for

Kurdish literature Kurdish literature ( or ) is literature written in the Kurdish languages. Literary Kurdish works have been written in each of the six main Kurdish languages: Zaza language, Zaza, Gorani language, Gorani, Kurmanji, Sorani, Laki language, Laki and S ...

. (2010) * Bait Al-Ghasham Dar Arab Translation Prize for ''Safe Corridor'' (2024)

Literature

Hazha Abbas Ali, Wrya Naji Abdullah (2023). Psychological and Physical Transformation in A Safe Passage in Afrin by Jan Dost. ''Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities, Volume 30, 1,8, pp. 183-201''
* Askar, Nuha. (2022). The Out-of-Flock Dissident: An Interview with Kurdish – Syrian Writer Jan Dost. ''Review of Middle East Studies''. 56(2):403-409.

References

External links

Introduction and excerpt from ''Safe Corridor,'' translated by Marilyn Booth

Five poems by Jan Dost, translated by his daughter, Mey Dost
at ArabLit
Jan Dost's short story ''A Pleasant Countenance'', translated by Nancy Roberts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dost, Jan Living people 1965 births Kurdish writers Syrian writers Kurdish-language writers Translators to Kurdish Syrian Kurdish people