Sherko Bekas


Sherko Bekas , was a Kurdish poet. He was born on 2 May 1940 in Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan as a son of the Kurdish poet Fayak Bekas.

Biography

Bekas joined the Kurdish liberation movement in 1965 and worked in the movement's radio station. 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 Iraqi Kurdistan.
He died of cancer in Stockholm, Sweden on 4 August 2013.

Early years

Bekas was born in Iraqi Kurdistan. His father, Fayaq, was also a poet. Bekas published his first book when he was 17.

Literary works

In 1971, Bekas introduced the "Rûwange" element into Kurdish poetry; this 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" in 1975 into the Kurdish poetry.
Bekas' works have been translated into Arabic, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Italian, French and English. In 1987, he was awarded the "Tucholsky scholarship" of the Pen club 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.

Books

Here is one of his poems:
In the treasure of this world
From the King’s pearl ornamented trousers
To the Sultan’s gold woven garment
Or the emerald adorned court shoes of the queens
None of them did not become the symbol of love
And did not enter the museum of the people’s heart
Like Che Guevara’s casket hat
And Mandela’s simple garment
And Gandhi’s shoes