Birds in a Gale - by Ata Nahai (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A kaleidoscopic novel, investigating the nature of politics, narrative, and self determination in the wake of the Islamic Revolution.

Kurdish writers do not discriminate between novellas, short stories, and novels-these words are western inventions; in Kurdish, "çîrok" refers to every kind of story. And among the contemporary Kurdish writers spread across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Armenia, Iran, and the global diaspora, none is more revered than Ata Nahai.

Poignant, psychological, and deeply political, BIRDS IN A GALE is composed of the entwined stories of a writer and his characters in the time after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In this inventive metatext, lucidly translated by Chiya Parvizpur and Hourieh Maleki Qouzloo, the reader experiences the trauma and healing of a people reeling from a hundred years of repression and violence as the story slips deeper and deeper into itself. And as the author becomes one of his characters and a character takes on the role of author, we readers are left in a realm of bittersweet dreams and historical nightmare, holding tightly to the evocative words of a writer at the top of his craft.

About the Author

Ata Nahaei is a Kurdish novelist and short story writer who writes in Sorani Kurdish. He is considered one of the foremost novelists in Greater Kurdistan (which includes parts of Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria) and the leading Kurdish novelist in Iran. Born in Baneh in 1960, he graduated from high school in 1978 with a diploma in literature. Due to the revolutionary atmosphere in Iran in 1979 and the subsequent closure of universities for the next four years, he was unable to continue his studies.

Nahaei began his literary career by writing short stories and producing essays on the art of fiction. He has published three collections of short stories and three novels in Kurdish and has translated several world short stories and literary essays into Kurdish. In 2002, he won the top vote at the First Conference on Teaching the Kurdish Language in Tehran and became the head of the Kurdish Language Academy in Iran.
In 2005, Nahaei was awarded the Aras Prize for Kurdish literature and received the Ahmad Hardi Prize for Creativity in Sulaymaniyah in 2008. Additionally, the Persian translation of his most recent novel won the Best Fiction Prize of the Year in Iran.

Nahaei has translated Houshang Golshiri's Shazde Ehtejab and Milan Kundera's The Kafkaesque World into Kurdish, along with several other short stories by well-known international authors.

Birds in a Gale was originally written in Sorani Kurdish and copublished by Zhiar Press in Sine and the Kurdish Cultural Institute of Tehran. The second edition was released in Southern Kurdistan (Iraq) by Aras Press. The third and fourth editions were published by Mang Press in Eastern Kurdistan. Additionally, the novel has been translated into Kurmanji and published by Avesta Press in Istanbul, and the Persian translation was published by Behnegar Press. Birds in Gale also won the Ahmad Hardi Prize for Creativity and the Aras Prize, with the latter awarded to Ata Nahaei at the Galawezh Festival of Kurdish Literature.