All figures
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Poet
Ahmedê Xanî
Life · 1651 – 1707
2"If only I had a king, or an alliance of unity… I would raise the banner of the Kurdish tongue to the sky."
Biography
A Kurdish poet, thinker and jurist, born in 1651 in Bohtan. He completed his immortal epic "Mem û Zîn" in 1692 — at once a hymn to Kurdish love and a manifesto of national identity. He also wrote a children's Arabic-Kurdish dictionary and was among the first to theorise the Kurdish nation. He died in 1707 and is buried in Doğubayazıt, where his shrine remains a place of pilgrimage.
Poet
C
Cegerxwîn
1903 – 1984
The greatest Kurdish national poet of the 20th century. Born Şêxmûs Hesen in 1903 near Mardin, he emigrated to Syria and was among the pione...
S
Sherko Bekas
1940 – 2013
The foremost Sorani Kurdish poet of the 20th century, born in Sulaymaniyah in 1940. He pioneered Kurdish free verse and wrote epics and hymn...
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Melayê Cizîrî
c. 1570 – c. 1640
The greatest Kurdish Sufi poet, who lived in Cizîr (Cizre) of Bohtan in the 17th century. His classical Kurmanji *Diwan* weaves divine and h...