Kurdish Poet Battles to Defend Language, Culture

In a packed auditorium, a performance of a historical epic Kurdish poem, its tragedy akin to Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," is taking place. It was adapted for theater and produced by Kurdish poet Kawa Nemir. Nemir points to his traumatic childhood in Turkey as the driving factor to fight to keep the Kurdish language alive. "With the beginning of school I was harshly assimilated," he said. "They were telling us, 'You are Kurds, but you are...

© La Voix de l'Amérique - vendredi 30 janvier 2015