Helîm Yûsiv

Helîm Yûsiv (* 1967 in Amûdê , Syria ) is a Syrian-Kurdish writer and lawyer. After graduating from high school, he studied law at the University of Aleppo . Helîm Yûsiv writes in Kurdish and Arabic. His works are mainly published in Lebanon, Turkey and Germany. Few of his works were able to appear in Syria. In Germany, the author was first known in 1998 through the staging of his short story tote sleep not through the Teatra Jiyana Nu (Istanbul).

Since March 2000 Helîm Yûsiv has been living as a political refugee in Germany (until 2004 in Berlin, since then in Wuppertal). Helîm Yûsiv is committed to the human rights of the Kurds in Syria, with a particular focus on the suppression of the Kurdish language and literature. He is best known as the presenter of a critical literary program on a Kurdish television station. In 2002 and 2003 he took over the Kurdish-language editing of the 2nd and 3rd Kurdish Film Festival Berlin . He is a founding member of the Union of Intellectuals from Western Kurdistan Abroad . In addition to other contributions, he has lectured and written on Kurdish magazines in Syria for the Berlin Society for the Promotion of Kurdology .

Works

• The Pregnant Man (1991 Arabic, Damascus, 1997 Kurdish, Istanbul, 2004 German, Münster) Review of Kurdish Studies / Unrest
• The Woman on the High Floor (1995 Arabic, Beirut; 1998 Kurdish, Istanbul)
• The dead do not sleep (1996, 1st edition Kurdish, Istanbul, 2nd edition 2000, Istanbul; 1998 Turkish, Istanbul)
• Sobarto - Roman (1999 Kurdish, Istanbul; 1999 Arabic, Beirut)
• Mem ohne Zîn (2003 Kurdish, Istanbul)
• Fear Without Teeth (2006 Kurdish, Istanbul)

Quotes about Yûsiv

• About The Pregnant Man : “The stories from 'The Pregnant Man' come to us without clothes, even without patches, that is, completely naked. With a special imagination and a very beautiful poetic language, the author works on unploughed earth and uses artistic methods to build an unknown world. He shapes this unknown and amazing world with familiar and familiar words. In addition, the laughter generated by his black humor becomes a weapon against those in power - the oppressors in a backward society. Helîm Yûsiv is a writer in whom one can place high hopes. ” (Xalid Xalîfe in the newspaper Alif, Cyprus)
• "Because of his humor, the reader sometimes laughs at the characters in the story and sometimes at himself." (Syrian writer Sevkî Bexdadî)
• “ With 'The Pregnant Man', Helîm Yûsiv opens up unusual insights into Kurdish life. An equally profound and entertaining read that is worthwhile - both for people who simply like to read and for those who deal professionally with the analysis of Kurdish society. "(Judith Wolf, Kurdish Studies)
• “He cannot be persuaded by the idea that the world is a small, closed village,” the author gives his readers as a reading guide. But don't be mistaken. Despite cell phones and the Internet, we know next to nothing about the Kurds in northern Syria. With Helîm Yûsiv's stories we can at least guess their lives and perhaps understand why the author expresses the urgent hope that the men who blocked his way on the street years ago may never find out that you can read about them in German . Otherwise they would definitely regret letting me escape alive '. It is not just the presumably not so fictional staff in Helîm Yûsiv's stories that have to grapple with rabid donkeys. " (Dirk Ruder, Junge Welt)

Web links

• Literature by and about Helîm Yûsiv in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works and short biography ( memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )