Title: Kurdish Narratives of Identity: A Comparative Reading of Novels from Turkey and Iraq
Author: Persheng Yari,
The University of Western Ontario
Degree: Master of Arts
Program: Comparative Literature
Supervisor: Phu, Thy
2019

$Abstract$
The division of Kurds among the countries of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria after World War I resulted in a fragmented identity and affected the development of the Kurdish language and literature. Consequently, in their novels Kurdish writers focus on questions of identity, such as “who you are” and “where you come from.” My research discusses the novels of two Kurdish authors—Kae Bahar’s Letters from a Kurdand Yaser Kemal’s Memed, my Hawk—who lived in different countries, namely, Turkey and Iraq. This study explores, from a post-colonial point of view, how the novelists represented the fight against oppression in distinct ways due to their different geographical-cultural circumstances. I use Pascale Casanova’s and Rebecca L. Walkowitz’stheories of language to examine the specific language choices made by these two novelists. Finally, my research investigates how Kurds in different countries resist oppression and try to build their national identity. [1]