Famous Kurdish Poet Sherko Bekas Passed Away at Age 73
Sherko Bekas was born on May 2, 1940 in Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan. He was the son of the famous Kurdish poet Fayak Bekas.
Bekas joined the Kurdish liberation movement in 1965 and worked in the movement's radio station (the Voice of Kurdistan). He left his homeland because of political pressure from the Iraqi regime in 1986. From 1987 to 1992 he lived in exile in Sweden. In 1992, he returned to Kurdistan.
Sherko Bekas takes a prominent role in the modern Kurdish literature. He introduced a new element into the Kurdish poetry, called Rûwange (vision), in 1971 which was a break from the strict traditional rules of poetry, such as Rhyme. The poems translated in "The Secret Diary of a Rose" by Reingard and Shirwan Mirza, with Renate Saljoghi, are examples of this style. For the first time, he introduced the "poster poem" (a term originating from sculpture and painting) in 1975 into the Kurdish poetry.
Sherko's works are distinguished around the Globe and have been translated into Arabic, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Italian, French and English. In 1987, he was awarded the "Tucholsky scholarship" of the Penclub in Stockholm and in the same year he was awarded the freedom prize of the city of Florence.
A two-volume collection of his poetry works has been published in Kurdish under the title "Sherko Bekas' Diwan" in Sweden. These two 1000-page volumes contain his poetic works in their entirety. He has read his poems in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, United Kingdom, Russia, and Italy, where he was named honorary citizen of Milan. He visited United States in 1990.
He was also the Minister of Culture in the first cabinet of Kurdistan Region Government.
Sherko Bekas, the acclaimed modern Kurdish poet, died yesterday August 4, 2013 of cancer in a Swedish hospital.
