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The Out-of-Flock Dissident: An Interview with Kurdish – Syrian Writer Jan Dost
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2024
Abstract
The recent Syrian uprisings have impacted all sectors of life and played a major role in redrawing internal boundaries among different groups in Syria, not only between Kurds and Arabs but also within the fabric of Kurdish life. Among Syrian Kurds, calls for militarization and separation based on national chauvinism (Qasad) are countered by more moderate voices warning of the dangers of escalation and calling for Kurdish civilian rights within the Syrian homeland. Jan Dost is a Syrian–Kurdish writer whose literary oeuvre includes poetry books, numerous translations from and to Kurdish, and twelve novels, some of which have been translated into Turkish, Arabic, Sorani, Persian, and Italian. His criticism of what he calls “Kurdish fascism” prompted this interview, which is part of my current doctoral research on internal dissent in modern Middle Eastern narratives that negotiate the failure of “nationalism” in building modern states. Dost was born in Kobani in 1966 and has been living in Germany since 2000. His novel Mokhatat Petersburg (Petersburg Manuscript, 2020) was longlisted for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award. The interview is my translation from Arabic. It has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Middle East Studies Association of North America
References
1 Jameson, Fredric, “Third-world Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism,” Social Text 15 (1986): 69Google Scholar.
2 Ibid., 66.
3 “Outside the Flock” is a famous political satire by the prominent Syrian playwright Muhammad al-Maghout (1934–2006). Using Brechtian theatrical techniques and symbolism, he incites people in this play, staged during the era of the late Syrian president Hafez Al-Assad, to rebel against despotism and thought police. The flock means the submissive popular current, and here it is an insinuation that writing in Arabic contradicts the general current of Kurdish writers of writing in languages other than Arabic.
4 Mallette, Karla, Lives of the Great Languages: Arabic and Latin in the Medieval Mediterranean (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021), 18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.