Kurdistan + 100

About

Winner of a PEN Translates Award 2021

Kurdistan + 100 poses a question to contemporary Kurdish writers: Might the Kurds one day have a country to call their own? With 13 stories all set in the year 2046 – exactly a century after the first glimmer of Kurdish independence, the short-lived Republic of Mahabad – this book offers a space for new expressions and new possibilities in the ongoing struggle for self-determination.

Throughout the 20th century, and so far in the 21st, the Kurds have been repeatedly betrayed, suppressed, and stripped of their basic rights (from citizenship to the freedom to speak their own language), seeing their political aspirations crushed at every turn.

In this groundbreaking anthology, Kurdish authors (including several present and former political prisoners) imagine a freer future, one in which it is no longer effectively illegal to be a Kurd. From future eco-activism, to drone warfare, to the reanimation of victims of past massacres, these stories explore the present struggles through the prism of futurism to dazzling effect.

Translated by Amy Spangler, Nicholas Glastonbury, Andrew Penny, Mustafa Gundogdu, Rojin Hamo, Khazan Jangiz, Harriet Paintin, Darya Najim, Dibar Çelik & Kate Ferguson.

Press

‘A brilliant idea for an anthology… Futurism is one of SF’s most important tools, allowing — even compelling — writers and readers to look at the present from a new angle in order to imagine the future.’ - The Morning Star

'There is unity to be found in the cause. The questions of how much SF can, does, or should seek to influence reality are eternal and vexed but an anthology like Kurdistan + 100 makes you hope that in the end, something might change.' - Locus Magazine, Issue 759

‘The Kurdish spirit and yearning for self-independence and autonomy cannot be extinguished, and this spirit is displayed beautifully in the anthology Kurdistan+100: Stories from a Future Republic… To read an anthology of Kurdish stories in the English language makes this an immediate treasure.’ - The New Arab

Read interview with co-editor Orsola Casagrande in The Skinny.

‘Whenever and however a future Kurdish nation might come to pass, the stories in this collection remain: to be read, re-read, and remembered.’ M Lynx Qualey in Qantara.de

‘Before we can begin to speculate on what a truly alternative future might look like, we must first find ways to reckon with the past. Kurdistan +100 is a landmark step along the way.’ - The Markaz Review

‘Kurdistan +100 is a thematically, formally and stylistically varied anthology that [highlights the global implications of ‘local’ issues, challenge complacency and provide the faintest flicker of possibility that things might be different].’ - ParSec #11