Kurdish Women's Stories

Regular price $ 22.95

Edited by Houzan Mahmoud

Pluto Press (UK)

10/1/2020, paperback

SKU: 9780745341149

 

Kurdistan has had a tumultuous history, and the women who lived there have experienced a life like no other. From Saddam Hussein's reign of terror beginning in the 1960s, to the fight against ISIS today, violence, revolution and questions around identity, agency, survival and resistance have been at the forefront of women's lives for decades.

This book is a collection of these women's stories written in their own words. Each story reveals a tapestry of experiences, including political activism under Saddam and armed resistance in Rojava's PKK and YPG and Komala in Rojhalat. This is in addition to experiences of FGM and overcoming victimhood, life under extreme conservatism, as well as a look into the work of artists, poets, novelists and performers whose work represents a complicated relationship with Kurdistan.

These rich and nuanced insights come from a group of women from a nation without a state, who are now scattered across the world. Collectively, they take the reader on a journey that will inspire feminist, anti-fascist and anti-racist people across the world.

Reviews:

"Jonsson courageously reveals the fault lines of the longstanding gulf between black and white feminism, exposing the power of white privilege in gender politics and how it undermines solidarity within the sisterhood. A must for a new generation of antiracist feminist scholars and activists who truly seek the holy grail of intersectional equality."--Heidi Safia Mirza, editor of Black British Feminism

About the Editor:

Houzan Mahmoud is a Kurdish women's rights and anti-war activist. She is the co-founder of the Iraqi Women's Rights Coalition and Culture Project, an online and print magazine that gives a platform to Kurdish voices. She has written for the Guardian, openDemocracy, Independent and New Statesman.